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The Pre-Socratie Use of 

VvXV 

As a Term for the Principle of Motion 



BY 

SISTER M. THOMAS AQUINAS, O. S. D., M. A. 

OF THE 

Sisters of Saint Dominic, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Catholic Sisters College of the Catholic 
University of America in Partial Fulfillment 
of the Requirements for the Degree 
Doctor of Philosophy 



Washington, D. C. 
June. 1915 



The Pre-Socratic Use of 

Vvxv 

As a Term for the Principle of Motion 



SISTER M. THOMAS AQUINAS, O. S. D., M. A. 

OP THE 

Sisters of Saint Dominic, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Catholic Sisters College of the CatJiolic 
University of America in Partial Fulfillment 
of the Requirements for the Degree 
Doctor of Philosophy 



Washington, D. C. 
June, 1915 



*$* 






National Capital Press, Inc 

Book Manufacturers 

Washington, D. C 



PREFACE 

The general purpose of this study is to modify some of the effects 
due to the necessities of language among the Greek philosophers 
of the fifth and sixth centuries B. C. There can be no doubt 
that ideas conceived at this time suffered from lack of adequate 
forms of expression. Later thinkers, exhibiting a disregard for 
the effects of inadequate terminology, have assigned to the pre- 
Socratic philosophers theories inconsistent with true growth of 
thought. A study of the word rf/vxy as standing for a kinetic 
principle in the minds of philosophers preceding Socrates cannot 
fail to emphasize the consideration of the need of terms as a factor 
in the history of philosophy. 

On the positive side, this study would suggest an adjustment of 
the sources for Greek terms for the soul in an effort to account 
for the vocabulary of later philosophers regarding ipvxv proper. 

The method adopted in the collection of pre-Socratic terms 
would balance a too ready acceptance of words ascribed to early 
thinkers and an absolute rejection of terms colored by Aristotelian 
influence. 

The scope of the study includes terms for apxh, for ypvxh as 
a kinetic principle, and for would-be agent causes as used during 
the century and a half of Greek speculation from Thales (585 B. C.) 
to Democritus (420 B. C). 

The frequent mention of Diels' Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 
(abbreviated Vor.), of Diels' Doxographi Graeci (Dox.), of Ritter 
and Preller's Historia Philosophiae Graecae (R. P.), and of Hick's 
edition of Aristotle's De Anima indicates the free use of works 
invaluable in this study. 

To the Reverend William Turner, S. T. D., at whose suggestion 
this thesis was written, is due grateful acknowledgement of 
encouragement and assistance. 

Sister Thomas Aquinas. 
Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, O. P., 

March 7, 1915. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 
I. Introduction. 

1. The Purpose of a Study of Terms for Kinetic \f/vxv- • 7 

2. The Method of Treatment of Pre-Socratic Terms 11 

II. Study of Terms for Kinetic xf/vxy- 

1. Early Ionian Terms 14 

2. Early Pythagorean Terms 21 

3. Terms of Heraclitus 25 

4. Eleatic Terms 29 

5. Summary of Terms of Pre-Socratic Dynamism 33 

6. Terms of Empedocles 36 

7. Terms of Anaxagoras 39 

8. Terms of the Successors of Anaxagoras 43 

9. Summary 46 

III. Bibliography. 



I. INTRODUCTION 
1. THE PURPOSE OF A STUDY OF TERMS FOR KINETIC 

Aristotle, in the first chapter of De Anima, justified his treatise 
on the soul when he said: "It would seem, too, that an acquaint- 
ance with this subject contributes to the whole domain of truth." 
Likewise a knowledge of the word \pvxv as used in a particular 
sense by the early Greek philosophers seems well worth while as 
teaching that Truth is the First and the Last. 

Since an understanding of the first attempts at a physical 
system implies a first-hand rather than a traditional knowledge 
of the words these thinkers used, a study of the kinetic \pvxh is 
proper to an investigation of the theories of the physicists before 
Socrates. 

The use of \j/vxv m another sense than for the soul of man recurs 
from Thales to Democritus. Commonly held to stand for a 
principle of animation, in its earliest use it may have stood for 
only the principle of motion. For these early thinkers life was not 
necessarily coextensive with motion. Linguistic poverty accounts 
for the use of this term to express now the idea of mere mobility 
and again the quality of animation. According to an imperfect 
analogy — "a likeness and a difference" (Theophratus III, 152 
Wimmer) — objects could have been thought of as efixf/vxa — en- 
dowed with \f/vxv — and the whole term could have been used 
when only the attribute of motion was being predicated of things. 

We cannot too often recall, in a study such as this, that the object 
of speculation at this period was nature and that the purpose 
of the so-called philosophers of these days was to find an under- 
lying principle — a "one." Sometimes they cast the problem into 
another form and set it in terms of change when they asked how 
things were "moved." 

It is fairly established that there was no definite speculation 
regarding the human soul in the early days of philosophy. It goes 
without saying that the three Aristotelian distinctions of \pvxv 
were not in the minds of the pre-Socratics. The first philosoph- 
ical \f/vxv represented a kinetic principle rich in promise. The 
physiologers took the term \l/vxv out of popular phraseology 
and raised it from its place in their Homeric and pre-philosophical 



8 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

inheritance to stand for a would-be cosmothetic force somewhat 
after the manner in which they adopted apxv for philosophical 
terminology. 

The knowledge of pre-Socratic systems has suffered from a con- 
founding of the term \f/vxv as used for a kinetic principle with 
the old (and later the new-old) term faxy as used for the principle 
of animation and for the soul of man. The identification of ipvxv 
and apxv has branded the earliest Ionians with latent materialism. 
The simplest explanation of the identification of these terms is 
by no means final. To decide that, after the physicist had reduced 
all things to air, fire, or some other body, he postulated, by way of 
a corollary, this primary element as the cause of vital function 
is only to include \J/vxv taken as standing for the human soul, 
in apxv, the material substratum of all things. Commentators 
were prone to read into a term the sense it held in their own time. 
The only meaning of the term \pvxy in the mind of most later 
thinkers was yj/vxv as it stood for the human soul and included 
the principle of life. Again, the analysis of this equation which 
discredits scepticism as a natural attitude is on the side of \pvxv as 
a term for soul proper. The fact that the power of the mind gives 
rise to processes mentally reproducing the nature of the object 
known has been noted as potent enough to cause early thinkers to 
infer that the soul is a mixture of all elements. If all things were 
reduced to a primitive substance, then would the mind that knows 
them be that substance; ipvxy, the knowing part of us, becomes 
identical with apxv, the first principle. However satisfactory as 
explanations of theories attributed to the philosophers who began 
to give attention to mental science, for the early Ionians at least, 
who, as physicists, certainly used ij/vxv m other than the old sense, 
these solutions of the equation are strained. The formation of 
what seems to us an equation was probably due to a lack of words, 
while \f/vxv as the original member of it was merely kinetic in force. 
apxv was the basis of all things and all things were moved, ^vxv 
being the principle of motion. If apxv and \f/vxv coexisted 
hylokinetically, then ij/vxy as a force in nature was the kinetic 
aspect of apxv- Philosophy from the first tended toward physical 
dualism and ypvxh buried in apxv contained part of the efficient 
cause in germ. The crude but prophetic half-conception of a 
force causing things to move was impeded by a lack of words for 
this new element of thought. The growth of the notion of trans- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

ient force culminated in vovs or vovs koli \f/vxv- Anaxagoras was 
the true successor of the earlier thinkers; the Atomists were 
unworthy heirs of Ionian philosophy. 

Recalling that distinctions very clear in our own day had not 
yet been made in philosophy at this time, we cannot project upon 
the pre-Socratics a system of causes which was the outcome of a 
synthesis of many threads of speculation. Nevertheless, the 
philosopher of that day was the forerunner of both the cosmologist 
and the scientist, whose conclusions can never be contradictory. 
These early explanations due to natural processes of thought 
carried phases belonging to separate fields of later philosophical 
speculation. When studying Greek philosophy in its beginnings, 
we must not overlook the fact that there was often mental dis- 
crimination on the part of the early thinkers where we find identity 
of term. Their lack of words for their new ideas should not convict 
them of the ancient errors of modern times. 

Besides its effect on our knowledge of the physical theories of 
the pre-Socratics, a consideration of the exact sense of their use 
of \f/vxv and its derivatives should discredit the assumption of 
ethnological animism. Recent theorists, not emphasizing the 
distinction of kinetic \pvxh as a principle for inanimate objects 
and \f/vxv as a principle of life and thought, have tried to convict 
the earliest Greek philosophers of animism in support of the 
"soul-theory" or "ghost-theory" of religion. This theory, which 
attacks the integrity of the history of religion, is insecurely based 
on evidence afforded by the mere necessity of language at a period 
before philosophy distinguished immanent and transient motion. 
Philology has offered opposition to this evolutionistic trend of 
thought by pointing out that objects called living were so called 
from a lack of words to represent qualities they were conceived as 
possessing. (Cf. Max Miiller — Lectures on the Origin of Religion.) 

Viewed in our perspective, many of the terms for qualitative 
refinement and for quantitative indeterminateness applied to 
rj/vxv as a term for the principle of motion, now in reference to 
the kinetic aspect of apxv and again to dpxv without regard to 
its principle of motion, contributed to the vocabulary used to 
describe xj/vxy proper when the heirs of Socrates began to turn 
their minds to conscious psychological speculation. Philosophy 
now easily passes from the notion of soul as a life-giving, animating 
principle to the idea of a sensitive or of a rational soul. The 



10 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

Greeks arrived at the complete notion of \f/vxv by two lines of 
thought. One line began in the earliest physical systems of the 
pre-Socratics. Faintly drawn for themselves, it is almost obliter- 
ated for us through their lack of words. We know only that they 
used the term \J/vxv \ we do not know that they even perceived the 
analogy which led them to use a term wider than the power they 
intended to connote by it. We cannot regard the words gathering 
around this natural force as the sole influence in the development 
of terminology for yj/vxh proper. Kinetic \f/vxv m &y appear dis- 
torted in the isolation to which it is subjected in an effort to balance 
former lack of consideration of its claims as a factor in termi- 
nological progress. In offsetting the decided tendency to indicate 
the effect of the old popular term and idea and of the vague philo- 
sophical \J/vxy proper on the \f/vxv of the physicist, we cannot 
disregard cross-lines of popular notions and terms with would-be 
philosophically technical thought and expression. Yet, while 
we admit this interaction as well as the unconscious subjective 
element in speculation by which the power of thought is trans- 
ferred to things, we would qualify for even the first Greek philos- 
pher the assertion that inanimate were assimilated to animate 
objects. 

When philosophical speculation centered on the human soul, 
attention turned first to the element of sensation, that other 
source of knowledge and terms for ij/vxv so often noted by Aris- 
totle. (Cf. De Anima 403 b 2). There is no sharp definition of 
the periods for the use of ij/vxy in physical and psychological 
senses. When the time came to consider the element of motion 
in the definition of the human soul and the ideas and terms for 
\f/vxv as an objective principle were in turn caught up for "our 
soul," the use of the word \f/vxv had completed an orbit in the 
history of philosophy. In seeking to determine how part of the 
vocabulary came to be at hand for the expression of Platonic and 
of Aristotelian notions for the new-old power in man, we find at 
least one source of terms in expressions for the force in nature for 
which the old terms for power, human or divine, had been borrowed 
by philosophy in its beginnings. The Homeric and popular 
inheritance of terms for \pvxv was n °t directly transmitted to the 
greatest Greek philosopher. The loan of terms was compensated 
for with interest by the physiologers who had, on the way, ground 
down many of these words to terms fitting the ideas of incorporeal- 



INTRODUCTION 11 

ity and of immortality as defined on the heights of philosophic 
thought. 

2. THE METHOD OF TREATMENT OF 
PRE-SOCRATIC TERMS 

We have aimed to follow a via media and to adopt in our method 
a mean between over-ready acceptance of terms for the pre- 
Socratics and a final rejection of all terms attributed to them on 
the authority of those affected by Aristotelian form of expression. 
Truth cannot be sacrificed to an exaggerated attitude of historical 
insight. The words of those thinkers were pre- Aristotelian, but 
the human mind philosophized even when the philosopher knew 
nothing of the nature of his own mode of thought. We shall not 
deny to the Greek thinkers before Socrates certain tendencies 
natural to speculation in every age. 

"When a given symbol which represents a thought has lain for 
a certain length of time in the mind, it undergoes a change like 
that which rest in a certain position gives iron. It becomes 
magnetic in its relations — it is traversed by strange forces which 
did not belong to it. The word, and consequently the idea it 
represents, is polarized. " (0. W. Holmes. The Professor at the 
Breakfast Table.) 

An appreciation of the early Ionian standpoint often demands 
that words attributed to Ionian thinkers be subjected in the days 
of developed terminology to a process of depolarization. The 
early philosophers themselves, though scarcely realizing its need, 
were unconsciously influenced by some such process when com- 
pelled to adopt for their new ideas terms in use as forms of religious 
and popular expression. The terms of religion suggested them- 
selves through the evident relativity of the new philosophical 
notions and of the old conceptions of the attributes of the gods, 
who, while not then in philosophy, were deep in the lives of these 
philosophers. The tendency of thinkers to stop on the brink of 
the great conclusion just short of a great contribution and to fall 
the lower for their ascent often accounts for a falling back on old 
catch-phrases and popular expressions. 

The terms for kinetic \f/vxv used by the philosophers of the 
principal schools before the time of Socrates fall into two general 
classes: (1) the terms found at first hand in the fragments of the 
early thinkers themselves and (2) the terms occurring in mediate 



12 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

and secondary sources which state opinions attributed to these 
thinkers. 

Where we have an immediate and first-hand source in an authen- 
tic fragment, we must further consider the philosopher's termino- 
logical inheritance, whether popular or philosophical, as well as 
his attitude of mind in using his words. Later thinkers were often 
inclined to overrate an unscientific, popular, or casual use of a 
term. An unphilosophical expression remains in the class which 
Aristotle would call a mere ovo/xa. On the other hand, there was 
sometimes an effort for exactness in an attempt to express a 
thought which was ahead of current terminology. An old term 
had then taken on a new content or inner sense — foavoia, as 
Aristotle would call it. Again, even when the use of the term was 
scientific, the philosopher's temperament often dictated his form 
of expression, and style, or Xe£is, regulated the adoption of one 
word above another, as in the case of Empedocles and of Heraclitus. 
The point of view of the age and of the philosopher consciously 
using these terms largely determined the inner sense of the word. 
Philosophy in that age was taking for granted all things but dpxv- 
While turning full attention on the sense of \J/vxv m one place, 
the philosopher could have accepted, as his age accepted, \f/vxv 
with other terms as mere ovofxara. 

We may locate the second class of terms in two principal mediate 
sources: Aristotle and the Doxographers. The Doxographers 
include Theophrastus, the authors of the Placita, who, for the 
most part, drew from him, Plutarch, Simplicius and the other 
historians of opinions. Plato, whose references to pre-Socratic 
thinkers are comparatively few, can scarcely be regarded as a 
fruitful source for this period. To the Pythagoreans and Parmen- 
ides he gave some attention, presenting them, however, not as 
historical characters but as his own creations. 

Aristotle has been accused of reading his own views into the 
theories of early philosophers. In the first chapter of De Anima 
and in the first book of Metaphysics he has given a synopsis of the 
opinions of those who went before him. It is true that this 
account is in his own terms, and yet he seemed to recognize the 
frequent attempts of the other seekers to bring their phraseology 
up to the level of their new ideas. While he censured, in some 
cases, it would seem, undeservedly, he did not fail to praise as well. 
In cautious qualifications, here and there, of his own terms in 



INTRODUCTION 13 

explaining the theories of his predecessors (Cf . De An. 404 and 405), 
Aristotle was evidently conscious that he was himself speaking 
on the heights of his own system. 

We must observe a cautious discrimination of sources when 
accepting terms occurring in the Doxographers. (Cf. Fairbanks 
p. 263). An dwep or a XeYcrai were often dropped in the tradi- 
tion to which the words of Aristotle and of others were subjected. 
These historians of opinions, failing to depolarize the terms they 
cited, exhibit tendencies of * 'accommodation/ ' of false inference, 
and of inaccurate listing of philosophers. In many cases the 
historian of philosophy has accepted doxographic tradition on 
faith. It should not be necessary to note that distinctions familiar 
enough today were contributed by periods subsequent to the fifth 
century B. C. The pre-Socratics did not deal in the full-grown 
ideas and much less in the words often attributed to them. The 
method of Theophrastus (and of those drawing on him as a source) 
of casting into Aristotelian terms the naive solutions offered in 
pre-Socratic times was sometimes responsible for distorted tradi- 
tion. We shall endeavor, then, not to transform a pre-Socratic 
thinker into a post-Aristotelian, but thus forewarned, we may 
accept the potent fact that the philosophers themselves strove for 
new words and that their minds "compelled by truth itself" 
(Arist. Met. 984, b 8) spoke words other than those afforded by 
their language. 



II. STUDY OF TERMS FOR KINETIC ¥u X *. 

I. EARLY IONIAN TERMS 

The early Ionians were physicists; they were neither meta- 
physicians nor psychologists in the sense these words bear today. 
The method of each early Ionian philosopher might be described 
as corresponding to the method of Thales, who was led to his con- 
clusion about a first principle by things that appear to the senses. 
(Simpl. Phys. 23, 21 Dox. 475.) A recollection of this objective 
view-point discredits over-drawn deductions regarding Ionian 
theories. If the problem of change furnished by the senses was 
the problem these thinkers set out to solve, in their solutions they 
began, in a certain sense, to lay down a doctrine of causality. 
The word then used for "cause" was not atria but apxh> By 
this was meant a principle approaching Aristotelian "material 
cause," and yet the Ionian said no more than that apxh furnished 
the ground for the existence of other things. That a material 
cause should be held as actually giving being to its effect had not 
yet suggested itself to these early thinkers. Saint Thomas noted 
that those of the ancient philosophers who acknowledged motion 
in things admitted motion only as to accidents, as in rarity and 
density, aggregation and disgregation. (Summa Theolog. I, Q. 
LXIV, a. 2.) Yet while they were looking beneath the surface 
for a fundamental principle, they were at the same time developing 
a principle of motion. Aristotle (Met. 984 b I) seemed to see in 
the ideas of Parmenides the first recognition of the nature of 
such a cause. If we trust to the natural mode of thought and go 
back even of Parmenides, we find traces of the crude conception 
and of the imperfect and confused expression of some kind of 
force, which for the pre-Socratics averaged into an expression 
indicating kinetic power. To the Ionian physiologers at this 
point in the development of philosophy we leave wide margin 
for the unquestioning acceptance of the idea of a moving force. 
The popular god was dropped from the world of the physicists, 
who were considered adeoi (Cf. Simplicius, Phys. Dox. 475), but 
their habits of thought were not so easily changed since their 
need of words caused them to revert to the term Beds for this 
newly conceived force. Words heretofore used in quite another 
sphere, yet bearing for pre-Socratic thinkers a suggestive analogy, 
were frequently heard in the childish accents of their speculations. 
14 



EARLY IONIAN TERMS 15 

The early Ionian inheritance of yj/vxh a s a general term for the 
source of human activity was strong enough to keep that word 
prominently before a thinker groping for a form of expression for 
his latent agent cause. Granting that the first agents for the 
human language were human agents, we may maintain that the 
anthropological element, and with it the element of life, was drop- 
ped when the old word ^vxv was retained by the physicist. 

The two statements most directly attributed to Thales have 
reference to ipvxy m its kinetic sense, as the energizing force 
and the source of motion. If he said that the magnet has ypvxv he- 
cause it moves iron, said Aristotle (De An. 405 a. 19), then Thales 
conceived the soul as something having the power of motion — 
KwrjTucov tl. Aristotle, consciously treating irepi faxys, thus 
cited an instance of the early use of the term faxy- In this passage 
Aristotle was calling attention to the element of motion in the 
definition of the human soul which he was himself constructing. 
Thales would have regarded the soul as klvtjtlkov rt since he used 
the word \f/vxv for his moving force, yet it is quite possible that 
he would not recognize himself in the De Anima. His outlook 
was in quite another direction when he used the significant form 

fvxv- 

Perhaps, said Aristotle (De An. 411 a. 7), Thales said that all 
things are full of gods, because, "as some say," xj/vxy is interfused 
(fjL€fjL€lxBai) in things throughout (ev r£ oXco). wdvra here was 
for Thales the merest unification of the world of phenomena. The 
expression deuv TrXypy iravray which has been elaborated for him 
as dpxv Mta kclI KLvovfievq (Simpl. Phys. Dox. 475), further bespeaks 
the need of terms. 

Plato (Leg. X, 899 B) decided to include \f/vxai under the 
term 6eol whether they order (Koafxelv) the whole heavens as 
living beings in bodies or whether they accomplish this in some 
other form and manner. Plato further showed that he was here 
only repeating the apothegm of Thales. We cannot explain 
the form and manner in which the moving force acted on the 
elementary water for the first Ionian philosopher. Plato himself, 
on the strength of the statement that things are full of gods, in 
Platonic phraseology called ypvxv y \pvxai • • • atrial. This mov- 
ing force, hylokinetically present in things, is an instance of a 
prophetic conception held by the Greek mind. 

Diogenes Laertius (1. 27) asserted that Thales held the world 
endowed with \pvxy (ep,\l/vxos) and full of 8alfxoves in place of 



16 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

the Oeol of the apothegm quoted by Plato and Aristotle. Thales 
was again (Cf. Aetius, Dox. 301) noted as holding to -kov as 
efnf/vxov and full of dalfioves, but the tradition was too hard 
pressed by Stoic influence when it attributed to Thales the identi- 
fication of God with the mind of the universe, (vovs tov koghov 6 
Beds). Cicero fell in with this doxography (Cf. Burnet p. 46) 
and even raised this \(/vxh to the level of a full grown agent cause. 
(Cf . D. Deor. N. 10, 15 — earn mentem quae ex aqua cuncta fingeret.) 

Since Thales in no conscious sense distinguished matter and its 
opposite, the heirs of Aristotelian thought and terminology have 
overdrawn decidedly in such statements as: "He supposed soul 
to be unsubstantial form." (Cf. Simpl. in Arist. De An. 8 r 31, 32). 
Tradition has assigned to Thales a fuller vocabulary than he 
possessed and thoughts that are beyond his highest conceptions. 
Although his first principle was "one and moved" (/ua /cat 
Ktvovfjihrj), his ypvxh was a most elementary cause, the form and 
manner of whose activity is all hidden in the one word Ktvelv. To 
say that for him a divine moving power (8vvafjns Oela klv/jtikt}) 
pervaded (5ii7K€«>) the elementary water (Aet. Dox. 301) is to 
distort the thought and much more the words of Thales. Yet 
when he said that the world was full of gods, Thales had fallen 
behind his own thought through need of words. 

It can better be said what this first philosophical \J/vxv w ^s not 
than what it was. It was not water nor was it the popular deity. 
The first principle, the object of speculation was one and moved. 
Everything came from water, but everything was full of gods. 
The apxv was determined and its Kivrjais was \l/vxv- 

Aside from the inferences of his commentators, there is no 
evidence of an attempt on the part of Thales himself to give any 
terms to the human soul. We have noted that later efforts to fix 
rpyxv proper were significant in their appeal to the quality of 
motion which the physicists were forced to express in the old 
terms exew ^vxw- 

The process of how things came out of the elementary water 
has been described for Thales as the purely accidental process of 
solidifying and melting. (Cf. irr)yvv(rdcn, and diavL€<rd(u of Hipp. 
Dox. 555.) 

The point of transition from Thales to Anaximander is in the con- 
ception of a first principle. Thales was one of those who said 
that the material substratum of things was one and moved, but 



EARLY IONIAN TERMS 17 

he said also that it was limited, (ireirepao-fievr) — Simpl. Phys. 
Dox. 475.) Anaximander's first principle could not be quanti- 
tatively designated by any word then in use and so he adopted for 
philosophy a word to signify the boundlessness or the endlessness 
of his apxv- He first imported (/co/u£€i*>) the term aTecpos. (Cf. 
Simpl. Phys. Dox. 476). It is not so probable that Anaximander 
was the first to employ the term apxv (Hipp. Dox. 559) in a 
philosophical sense. (Cf. Burnet p. 52.) 

While there is no evidence for the qualitative determination of 
Anaximander's principle, we cannot doubt that he unquestioningly 
regarded it as material. Commentators tried qualitatively to 
determine this apxv which was to awecpov by fixing it between 
air and water and again between air and fire on the strength of 
false interpretations of Aristotle, De Caelo 303 b. (Cf. R. P. 16 b.) 

To Anaximander, among others, was attributed the statement 
(Theodoret Dox. 387) that the nature of \j/vxh is aep&drjs. 
This is perhaps significant as bringing into some relation the 
falsely determined apxv and the element of motion within it, 
which Anaximander likewise may have expressed by the 
term rpvxv- 

In the consideration of the "process" as explained by early 
thinkers we find traces of the kineticism, general or particular, 
for which they seem to have made ypvxv stand. Anaximander 
was not ready with words to describe this "process." Theo- 
phrastus (Dox. 476) has noted his poetic form of expression where 
it is said that things return of necessity (/cara to xptw) to 
that from which they spring, "paying the penalty to one another 
according to the order of time." The process for him was one 
requiring a separation of the opposites (aTOKpwojjLevoov t&v 
kvavrluv) and this separation took place through eternal motion 
(5td tt)s cudiov KLvfjaeoos). This "eternal motion," postulated in 
addition to to aweipov (Hipp. Dox. 559), is prominent in doxo- 
graphic tradition for Anaximander. Hermippus (Dox. 653) 
represented Anaximander asserting that apxv was older (irpeo-fivTepa) 
than water and was eternal motion (cudios nivricns) by which (raurfl) 
things came to be and were destroyed. 

Two fragments attributed to Anaximander occur in Aristotle's 
Physics (203 b) where Aristotle himself assumed to aireipov as 
the subject of irtpikx&>v airavTa kclI iravTa nvfiepvav. Of whatever 
the power to surround all and to direct all was predicated, it is 



18 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

significant that these words are found in a verbal citation of one 
of those thinkers who, as Aristotle noted, gave no other cause 
than to aireipov. The Ionian was doubtless giving in these terms 
directive power to the kinetic aspect of to aireLpov. (Cf . Tannery 
p. 98). Aristotle further assumed to airupov to be to Belov, be- 
cause it was for Anaximander and his contemporaries dBdvaTov 
kclI avcoKedpov. However, in this passage Aristotle did not fail 
to cite vovs and <f>L\la as instances of the progress of philosophy 
whereby the full grown ipvxv cause came into its own. 

Hippolytus (Dox. 559) repeated irepiexew for Anaximander 
and gave to apxv the aidios of the nivrjcrLs. He added for apxv the 
term ay rjpoos as kindred of the dBdvaTos and the avco\eBpos quoted 
by Aristotle for Anaximander. To these may be added the 
terms cbs aykvr\Tov re kclI a^BapTov attributed by Simplicius (Phys. 
465, 13 D) to the apx'h of Anaximander. This apxv Simplicius 
called Belov to alTiov. The use of the term delov may indicate 
Anaximander 's reversion to a form of the word Beds for his partly 
inherent force. In the days of Anaximander apx'h was elevated 
from popular to philosophic terminology according to the same 
principle by which ypvxh took on its new sense. 

The "eternal motion" of Anaximander passed on to Anaximenes. 
With Anaximenes we have the continuance of the use of the term 
aireipos as found in his predecessor, but to the qualitative deter- 
mination of the apx'h this philosopher seems to have given most 
of his attention. Since we find with him the most definite apx'h, 
we may here endeavor to determine what these thinkers meant 
by that term. 

Aristotle (Met. 983 a 27), in giving his own definition of "mater- 
ial cause," said (983 b) that most of the early philosophers thought 
that only first principles in the form of matter were the sources of 
things, {kv v\r]s eldeu . . . dpxat.) (Cf. R. P. 10 a.) Aristotle, 
attempting in the same passage to define what early thinkers 
meant by apxv, decided that e£ ov %gtiv airavTa tol ovto. best 
fitted their principle, however the ttXtjBos and the eldos may have 
differed for the individual thinker. 

Anaximenes identified his apxv with arjp, a word said to have 
been used by him synonymously with irvev^a. (Cf . Aet. Dox. 278.) 
Simplicius (De Caelo 615 Heiberg) said that d-qp was chosen 
as apx'h by Anaximenes because it was sufficiently adaptable to 
change. (euaXXotwros wpbs fJLeTafioKrjv). 



EARLY IONIAN TERMS 19 

Conscious of the need of words, Anaximenes (Aet. Dox. 278) 
reverted to -Kepieyew of Anaximander to express the activity of 
arjp. Plutarch (de prim. frig, c 7, 947 F) gave x^Xapos as a 
new term for Anaximenes in attributing to him the statement 
that the relaxed state of matter is from heat. 

Wherever drjp-dpxy is assigned to Anaximenes, Kivrjais is found 
with it. Theophrastus (ap. Simpl. Phys. Dox. 476) recorded 
that Anaximenes held an "underlying nature" (vTOKeLfievrj cf>v(ns) 
which was auo, and airetpos. After describing the varying rarity 
and density of d^p, Theophrastus added: "And he, too, posits 
eternal motion (Klvrjats clL8los) through which change takes place. 
(8l' fjv kclI ttjv fieTafioXrjv yiveadai). We have as another form 
of expression for this eternal motion of Anaximenes idvrjcns 
e£ alcovos. (Ps. Plut. Strom. Dox. 579.) 

Olympiodorus (Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes 
grecs, p. 83), introducing the false fragment for Anaximenes 
(eyYus kdTiv 6 cltjp tov aaoipLOLTOv) said /jllolv de KLVovnevrjv aireipov 
dpxyv tolvtcov t6)v ovtwv . . . rbv d'epa. 

Hippolytus (Dox. 560) repeated aireipos arjp for Anaximenes 
and included deol kclI dela among the things of which the Ionian 
made it the source. Continuing, Hippolytus gave motion as 
one of the causes why air becomes perceptible and represented 
Anaximenes as having named motion with other changes, but as 
having had a special place for it in his mind when he added 
KLveladcu de del. However, the remark that things would not 
change (p.eTa(3a\\eiv) unless arjp were in motion (el jut) kIvolto) is 
evidently the statement of the doxographer himself. 

In place of being the principle from which the gods and divine 
beings came, arjp was identified with debs by Anaximenes accord- 
ing to Aetius (Dox. 302) who especially noted the term debs. 

The fragment attributed to Anaximenes (Aet. Dox. 278) 
(olov rj \f/vxv V werepa drjp ovaa (rvyKparel 17/xds, /cat 6\ov tov Kbap.ov irvev- 
na ical drip Teptex^L.) is especially noteworthy as marking off 
17 \f/vxv v r\p.£T'epa from the new philosophical principle \pvxy> 
The term for the human soul was used here only in a casual com- 
parison and is seen to be the same dpxn as deol and all other 
things. WTience its power avyKparelv r}p.ds if not from^the funda- 
mental kinetic \pvxv was a question that remained to be asked. 
The cvyKparelp statement can scarcely be made significant as 



20 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

describing a function of the old ipvxy not yet an object of philos- 
ophy. For Anaximenes arip-apxv was the real subject of irepuex^v. 

The terms depia (Dox. 214) and depots (Dox. 287) assigned 
to Anaximenes as descriptive of ipvxv were doubtless derived by 
direct inference if they refer to \f/vxv proper. All things were 
arj p: then the soul must have been like ai)p. Again, they may 
have been affected by the survival of the relation of arip-apxy 
to ypvxh as the kinetic aspect of dijp. 

The fact that he postulated a qualitatively determined apxv in no 
wise convicts Anaximenes of a retrogression. We have seen him 
taking advantage of the aireipos of Anaximander to express the 
lack of quantification of his first principle. In the accounts of 
the process by which things came from "air-mist" he seems to 
have made an effort for words to describe differences demanding 
a higher complexity of expression than the terms for the "separa- 
tion" process of Anaximander. 

Theophrastus (Dox. 476) described the process of "thickening 
and thinning," by which the nature of things was made to differ 
for Anaximenes, when he said that dijp becomes dpaLovjxevos and 
again irvKvovfxevos. The forms dpcucoo-is and itvkvohtis are also 
used to describe the states of Ionian dpxv- (Ps. Plut. Dox. 579). 

Diogenes of Apollonia (423 B. C.) is found in the company of the 
Ionians of this century as holding dpxv identical with drjp (Cf. 
Aristotle, Met. 984 a 5). Aristotle assigned the refinement of 
the a.7)p-dpxv of Diogenes, which was ttclvtcov XeirTOfAepevTaros, as 
the cause of the moving power of soul proper for those who 
identified \l/vxv with "air-mist." (Cf. De An. 405 a. 21 — tyvxty 
. . . $ 8Z \6tt6tcltov KLvr)T(.Kov elvai). Anaximenes had given a 
new turn to things by all unconsciously posing as a representative 
of immateriality. He appears to have sought a first principle from 
which all things including motion could in reality come. The 
criticism (Aet. Dox. 278) which rejected the semi-monism of 
Anaximenes is, of course, out of place. a\\a kclI to ttolovp oXtlov 
xpi) vwoTidevai was not intelligible to an early Ionian philosopher. 



2. TERMS OF THE EARLY PYTHAGOREANS 

In a treatment of terms for the Pythagoreans the difficulty 
lies in keeping earlier and later Pythagorean doctrines and terms 
distinct. In most statements of opinions for "the Pythagoreans" 
Neo-Pythagorean influence is strong. The doctrine of opposites, 
the idea of harmony, and the substantiality of number colored 
many of their opinions, and yet the earlier thinkers of this school 
were working in the same direction as the early Ionians. 

The question of the human soul must have been for the Pytha- 
goreans, as members of an ethical society, a vital one. Few of 
these doctrines, however rich in significant phraseology, were 
connected with scientific speculation. One of the traditional 
works of Pythagoras himself is irepl ^vxns (Cf. Diog. L. VIII-7). 
Brotinos, a Pythagorean preceding Hippasus, has been credited 
with a work irepl vov kolI dtavolas. (Cf. Iamblich. Vor. p. 29.) 
Some of the early terms of the Pythagoreans for the faculties of 
perception and knowledge would be in place in a study of the 
growth of terms for the element of sensation in the definition of the 
soul proper. 

The possible emphasis with which the "soul of man" was dis- 
tinguished from any other \f/vxv in statements for the Pythago- 
reans draws a line between the popular term and the term for a 
kinetic principle. This distinction occurred in the traditional 
oath: "By him who transmitted to our soul the tetraktys, which 
has the spring and root of ever flowing nature." (For the 
a/jLerepa xf/vx* cf. avdpwrov \//vxv of Herodotus, II, 123 where he 
ascribed the doctrine of immortality to the Egyptians and to the 
Pythagoreans. A further instance occurs in a statement of 
Pythagorean divisions of the soul — Alex. Polyh. ap. Diog. VIII, 
30.) 

The term Ke<t>a\a replaces \fnj\o. in one form of the oath. 
(Cf. Aet. Dox. 280 and R. P. 65 (a).) (Od. 2, 237 has Ke<f>a\aL 
for \pvxa-i* of Od. 3, 74.) For the iraya aevaov $u<r€a>s 'pLfana r 
of the oath cf. irrjyri /ecu apxv lavrjaeus of Plato. (Phaedr. 245 C.) 

The terms dddvaros (Hipp. Dox. 557) and a^Bapros (Dox. 392) 
were traditionally ascribed to Pythagoras for ipvxv- The term 
deuaos of the oath contributes to the notion of "eternity" so 
often connected with the Ionian concept of motion. 

21 



22 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

Doxographic tradition (Aet. Dox. 280) assigned to Pythagoras 
apxai • • • ol apidpioi /cat au/tyterptat at ev tovtols, as /cat apfjiovias 
/caXet. Of the apxat, continued the doxographer, one tends 
toward the creative and form-giving cause which is intelligence, 
that is god (e7rt to ttoltitlkov atriov /cat etot/co*>, oirep eaTiv vovs 6 
Beds) and the other tends toward the passive and material cause, 
which is the visible universe, (eirl to Tradi\TLKov re /cat vkmbv, 
oirep karlv 6 oparos KOCfios.) 

Although we may question this assertion for Pythagoras him- 
self, the words of the early representatives of this school indicate a 
tendency toward dualism and a probable use of the term \pvxh 
for the principle of motion. 

If we allow for doctrines peculiar to the philosophers in the west 
(Cf. Arist. Met. 987 a. 15), we find a decided correspondence 
between early Pythagorean and early Ionian terminology. For 
Pythagoras dalfxoves were yj/vx^al ouo-tat. (Aet. Dox. 307.) Ac- 
cording to secondary sources, Hippasus of Metapontum held 
irewepao-pLtvov elvai to irav /cat b.eiKivr\Tov . (Diog. L. VIII, 84.) 

For Hippasus (and Heraclitus) we have from Aristotle (Met. 
984, a. 7) the word irvp as his ap%r/. Theophrastus (Dox. 475) 
filled in with %v /cat Kivovpevov /cat ireirepaajjievov. Hippasus was 
again named with Heraclitus in a statement containing for 
irvp the term deos (Cf. Clem. Protr. Vor. p. 31.) Aetius (Dox. 
388) added to these the name of Parmenides in the statement 
V faxi • • ' irvp&drjs. 

A recurrence of thought gives an apxv one and moved and here 
and there identified with debs', the term \pvxv then partakes of 
the qualitative determinateness of the double first principle. A 
recognition of the growing ideas of the early Pythagoreans should 
release them from the class of hylozoistic monists. 

An instance of the use of rj/vxv at this time as a philosophical 
term to connote life may be found in the words of Epicharmus 
(480 B. C). In the following first hand fragment (Vor. p. 91) 
Epicharmus marked a transition later to be noted : 

dXX' ocraa irep £77, iravTa /cat yvo3p,r]v exei 

ov TLKTet, Teuva 
£<bvT(a) dXX' €7raj^€t /cat iroiel if/vxw £X €LV ' 

The context here differs from that in which the expression 
yfrvxty Zx*w is found as a citation for Thales. When \f/vxv is 



EARLY PYTHAGOREAN TERMS 23 

used in a statement regarding man, the element of motion is for 
us covered by the element of life, but for pre-Socratic philosophers 
there was as yet no formal distinction of immanent and transient 
activity. 

An epigram of Epicharmus (Vor. p. 100) may be noted for a 
possible identification of 777 and Beds. Again, his terms in a 
fragment (Vor. p. 93) wherein vovs was distinguished from all 
else command attention as expressions for \f/vxv proper on the 
side of perception. 

Even in his so-called monism, the Pythagorean divided the 
underlying substratum of things sometimes into two and sometimes 
into ten principles. dpt0/zos, said Aristotle (Met. 986 a. 15) the 
Pythagoreans considered apxy, and of number the elements 
(oToixeta) were to ixpriov /cat to irepuTTov (Cf. Met. 985, b. 25.) 

Aristotle placed Alcmaeon among those who held at apxal bkna. 
Aside from this doctrine peculiar to himself as a Pythagorean 
("and they seemed to be speaking about another heaven and other 
bodies than those perceived by senses" Met. 1090, a. 34) Alcmaeon 
continued in the same direction as the Ionians. A term for per- 
petual motion occurs in De Anima (405 a 29) where Aristotle 
assigned to Alcmaeon a reason for the immortality of ypvxh. There 
if/vxi is adavaTos on account of its resemblance to oi adavaToi and 
it possesses this likeness by reason of being ever in motion 
(cos ael KLVovfiemj). Aristotle further said that Alcmaeon had 
held KLveladcu yap /cat rd 0eta tclvtcl cvvex&s ael. The term tcl Sela 
as standing for the heavenly bodies (De An. 405 b. I) is the 
evident contribution of popular belief. 

Aristotle noted (De. An. 404 a. 18) that "some of the Pythago- 
reans" identified ypvx'h and rd ev tu> aepi i-va/iaTa while others 
again called \pvxv to raDra klvovv. 

To Alcmaeon was assigned the opinion OeoL . . . . ol aaTepes 
elcl e(jL\f/vxoL ovTts. (Clem. Protr. Vor. p. 102.) Built on the 
De Anima statement for Alcmaeon is the assertion of Aetius 
(Dox. 386) which repeats dtotos /averts and gives yj/vxv as <£i/crts 
avTOKtvTjTos . The term <£i>crts here recalls Plato's speculation 
(Cratyl. 399 D-400 A) that the word xf/vxr} is derived from the 
expression 17 fyvaiv oxet /cat exei. Diog. Laert. VIII, 83 said 
that Alcmaeon held \pvxv to be adavaTos and KivzlaBai ovvex&s. 

It is doubtful whether we have in Philolaus an instance of a 
purely kinetic \f/vxr}- The term occurs with the conventional 



24 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

force in several fragments of Philolaus. (Cf. Vor. 243, 244, 254.) 
We meet with interesting and prophetic forms of expression in a 
doubtful citation for Philolaus regarding deos. (Cf. Vor. 247.) 

Worthy of note for us is the fragment of Philolaus (Vor. 239) 
which says: d <f>v<ns o* kv tu> /coot/co apfjLoxOrj e£ aireipcov re /cat 
Tepcuvovrcov. (Cf. Aet. Dox. 283.) 

A further instance of the harmony idea which illustrates the 
natural demand for a directive and harmonizing principle occurs 
in a statement of Philolaus (Vor. 241) which granted to alhos 
ecrcra /cat avra a <f>v(ns a certain Beta /cat ovk avdpojwivr] yvoxns. He 
significantly added here: abbvarov r)s /ca aureus (rats dpxats) 
KO(T/JL7]8rjv at, el fir) dpfjLovla eireyevro. We meet the term Kparelv also 
in another expression of the idea of the harmonizing and ordering 
force of Philolaus. (Procl. in Tim. Vor. 234.) 

The harmony notion was brought to bear on \j/vxv proper in 
Aristotle's account of "a certain other opinion." (Cf. De An. 
407 b. 30). rpvxv is there apfxovla rts — that is /epderts /cat 
orvvdeais kvavTiuv. Plato (Phaedo 85 E) identified \l/vxv of Philo- 
laus with apiiovla rts r)fj.o)i> and he further said (Polit. 1340 b. 18) 
that some of the "wise men" held that the soul has harmony 
and others that it was itself harmony. 

A new term for Philolaus is found (Theol. Arith. Vor. 235) 
as ^uxwerts kv e^dot, following Aristotle's identification of \pvxv 
/cat vovs with r&v apudfioov irados (Cf. Met. 985 b 30). 

The false fragment for Philolaus (Stob. Eel. Vor. 247), lending 
itself to the doctrine of the world soul, contains the expression 
dpxd rds klvtjvios re /cat /tera/3oXas and the significant combina- 
tion vovs /cat faxy- 

Ecphantus of Syracuse, if faithfully represented by Hippolytus 
(Dox. 566), must be added to the number of those using the 
term ipvxf) as a kinetic force. In him too we see the combination 
vovs /cat Tpvxh- For Ecphantus (Dox. 566) rd awfiara were moved 
p,r}T6 vwo /3dpous ixr)re Tr\rjyr)s but vivo delas dwcL/iecos which Ecphan- 
tus, according to the doxographer, called vovs /cat 4/vxv> (Cf. 
Plut. Dox. 217 where for Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle 
vovs 6 klvovv was said to be derebjuaros.) 

Although the terms ascribed to the early Pythagorean philos- 
ophers are often doubtful or colored, yet they bear evidence of 
the survival of yj/vxv as a term for a kinetic principle, at the same 
time foreshadowing the terminology of an actual distinction of 
matter and force. 



3. TERMS OF HERACLITUS 

The history of Ionian philosophy after 504 B. C. can be traced 
in first-hand sources as well as in the records of opinions. The 
terms in the fragments of Heraclitus, proverbially obscure, are 
influenced by the two phases of a theory more than half in line with 
the early Ionian solutions and yet carrying a new element of 
thought. The vague and figurative expression of a force apart 
from things appears to have begun with Heraclitus. 

In a confession of his own effort for precision of expression 
Heraclitus says (Frag. 2 (Bywater) Vor. p. 61) : "Men seem un- 
skilled when they make trial of words and matters such as I am 
setting forth in my effort to discriminate each thing according to 
its nature and to tell what its state is." 

The fragments of this heir of the early Ionians offer terms for 
the material principle, for the element of motion, and for the 
process by which things came from fire, xj/vxh m a kinetic sense 
appears to have been used by Heraclitus. 

The directive phase of irvp is shown in Frag. 28 (Vor. p. 71) where 
the thunderbolt is said to direct the course of all things, (piaidteiv) 
(Cf. Frag. 21, Vor. 67 where irprjcrTTjp is one of the irvpos rpowaL) 
The term olaMifew derived from oi'a£, the handle of the rudder, 
recalls the Kv(3epvav of Anaximander. Heraclitus himself used 
Kv(3epvav in relation to yvupLrj of Frag. 19 (Vor. 68). A further 
attempt to unfold two principles out of irvp was seen by Hip- 
polytus in the use by Heraclitus (Frag. 24, Vor. 71) of the words 
XPWVoavvr] and Kopos. Hippolytus thought that "want" was the 
process of arrangement (5ta/c6o-/xr/(7ts) by fire and that "satiety" 
was the e/c7rupo>o-is, and so this commentator decided that irvp 
was <t>povLjj,os and called it tt)s Sioi/cifcrecos tcov 6\ojv curios. The 
activity of irvp may have been further described in Frag. 26 
(Vor. 71). Heraclitus characteristically expressed his pan- 
metabolism in Frags. 41-42 (Vor. 64). 

Frag. 20 (Vor. 66) offers important terms: "Order (kocthos) the 
same for all things, no one of the gods or men has made, but it 
always was and is and ever shall be an ever living fire — irvp 
aeifaov." For the ovre tls dewv ovre avOpcowcov eToLrjae of this frag- 
ment cf. Frag. 65 (Vor.67) where wisdom (to <jo<\>6v) is lv and is 
willing and yet unwilling to be called by the name of Zeus. The 

25 



26 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

"process" is found in the same fragment (20) in the terms 
aTrTojjievos and d-Kovpevvbuevos and this "kindling and quenching" 
took place according to fixed measure, (fxerpa). Frag. 77 (Vor 
66) gives the same words for the process where Heraclitus said 
that man like a light (<f>dos) is kindled and put out. Frag. 78 
(Vor. 74) also emphasizes the subjective view-point and applies 
directly to the phases of mortal life the universal law of change. 
(jAerairiirTeiv) . 

The words of Heraclitus so far noted mark a tendency on the 
part of the philosopher to draw out the note of efficiency in irvp, 
and it remains to be seen whether he ever expressed this aspect 
of apxh in terms of ipvxy- Heraclitean terms for the definition 
of \pvxv proper on the side of sensation occur in several fragments 
where the conventional force of ipvxy became philosophical. How- 
ever, the term xf/vxi was evidently employed in a kinetic sense 
by Heraclitus. In the spurious fragment (131 By water) \f/vxv 
would undoubtedly bear that sense. (Cf. Diog. L. IX, 7 — 
iravra ij/vx&v elvat kcll baip,bvwv 7r\r}prj.) Frag. 71 (Vor. 68) 
ipvxys irelpara ova dv e^evpoio may hold a survival of kinetic 
yf/vxv- (Cf. aireipos . . . dpxv of Anaximander.) Frag. 68 
(Vor. 67) states that it is death (davaros) to \f/vxdt to become 
water, for k% vdaros Be faxy (yiverai). (davaros here stands for 
fi els erepov aroixelov pLerafioXr) according to Philo. R. P. 38 a.) 
With this we take Frag. 25 (Vor. 73) where fire lives in the death 
of earth and air lives in the death of fire : water lives in the death 
of air, and air in that of water. (£77 irvp rov 777s Oavarov n. r. X. 
(Cf. Plut. de E. 18, 392 C-Vor. 73). A reconciliation of Frag. 68 
and Frag. 25 is found in Frags. 41-42 (Vor. 64) where Heraclitus 
uses the new term dvaOvfjaaadai. 

In his elementary attempt to fix psychological values, Heraclitus 
may have been affected in his use of xf/vxi by the terms for the 
process. (Cf. Frags. 77-78.) Arius Didymus (Dox. 471) ascribed 
to Heraclitus a theory for ^J/vxv proper showing this tendency. 
"Wishing to make it clear that ai xj/vxai avaBv p.103 p.kvai voepai del 
ylvovTat, he likened them to rivers." Moreover, we have (Dox. 
471) the inference for Heraclitus that \j/vxv was aladriTucri 
avadvp-iavis. 

It seems clear that the term \f/vxv will bear our interpretation 
in this later Ionian thinker. Standing for the principle of motion, 
\J/vxv was seemingly identified with one of the four elements just 



TERMS OF HERACLITUS 27 

as the material principle seemed to have been identified with 
irvp. (R. P. 38 b notes the explanation of Philoponus for whom 
the Heraclitean irvp was 17 £r?pd ava6vp.lacris and who also said 

€K TCLVTYjS ^XV) • 

Aristotle's statement (De An. 405 a 25) for Heraclitus takes 
over for \pvxv proper the earlier thinker's terms for kinetic \pvxy- 
Here Aristotle, as in the case of Thales, qualified his assertion 
that Heraclitus identified apxh and \f/vxv by the words "if he 
identifies it with 17 avadvp.Laais from which he derives all other 
things." Aristotle added the terms do-cojuarcbraros and 'pkov ad 
for the ^vx'h-^pxn of Heraclitus. Aetius (Dox. 389) represented 
Heraclitus distinguishing between 17 tov Kocrfiov ypvxn (which he 
called dvadv fjilaais en ruv vypoiv) and the rf/yxv & rols ^cools. 
Theodoret (Dox. 386) gave for the \pvxy of Heraclitus the term 
Trvpiob-qs. 

Further secondary authorities keep Heraclitus in line with the 
early Ionians. Aristotle (Met. 984 a. 7) named him with Hippasus 
as holding irvp for his apxr)- (Cf. also Aet. Dox. 292.) Theo- 
phrastus (Dox. 475) elaborated this statement with the terms ev 
and Ki.vovp.evos and ireTepaapevos, with irvKoovvis and with p,avu><ns 
as terms for the process. The Heraclitean process was thus 
described by Aetius (Dox. 283) : "As this (irvp) is quenched all 
things come into order. (/cocrjuoTroieto-flai)-" In the description of 
the origin of earth, water and air from fire, as conceived by Hera- 
clitus, Aetius (Dox. 283) offered a repetition of the new term 
avadvtiiaadcu found in Frags. 41-42. 

"Motion" for Heraclitus was variously described by the second- 
ary authorities. Plato (Cratyl. 402 A) said that for Heraclitus 
Tcavra x^P^ Ka <> ovdev p.kva. To the followers of Heraclitus 
(ol 'peovres) he ascribed the doctrine ravra KLvelrat (Cf. Theaet. 
180 D-181 A.) Again, Aristotle (De An. 405 a. 28) said that 
Heraclitus thought that all things were in idvTi<ns. Aetius (Dox. 
320) distinguished for Heraclitus between eternal motion (dt<5ios 
KLvrjais) and (pdapri] k'lvt]gls. Aetius (Dox. 303) offered for irvp 
the term aidios. 

Up to this point Heraclitus had not departed from the old order, 
but the personification of a dual activity in some of the fragments 
of his work marks a turning point in the early efforts of Greek 
philosophy. The term cpts and dpfiovla vaguely expressed the 
notion of a force apart from things. 



28 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

Frags. 20 and 65 would put Heraclitus philosophically among 
the adeoi. ' In Frag. 36 (Vor. 71) 6 Oeos was iroXevos dprjvrj by- 
one phase of the power there ascribed in the term aWoiovadai. In 
Frag. 44 (Vor. 69) we find irokep,os iravroiv jiev Trarrjp eari ttclvtcw 
51 pacriXevs. Frag. 62 (Vor. 73-74) gives both terms epis and 
iro\e}jios and all things arise /car' epuv. (8kri is here identified 
with epts.) Frag. 46 (Vor. 63) combines both harmony and strife. 
"Opposition unites and from differences comes the most beautiful 
harmony." (icaXMoTq ap/jiopla.) Aristotle (Eud. Eth. 1234 a. 25) 
named Heraclitus as blaming Homer (2107) for his wish that strife 
would pass away. 

Heraclitus himself was probably unconscious of the implications 
of the notion he conveyed in thus imperfectly speaking in terms of 
dualism. His other force, yj/vxo inherent in apxy, was not yet 
supplanted in his mind and survived here and there in his term- 
inology as the kinetic phase of his irvp-apxr). Frag. 18 (Vor. 
77) where uoifrbv is ttclvtoov Kexupurnevov and Frag. 19 (Vor. 68) 
by the words yv&jjir} orkri knvpkpvqcre ttclvtcl 8lcl iravruv foreshadow 
later terms for a real second cause which will arise with the passing 
of kinetic ipvxv into vovs. 



4. ELEATIC TERMS 

Before tracing the idea of an external force as developed by the 
Ionians, it is worth while to examine the terms of the Eleatic 
philosophers for the notion of efficient cause and for the ever 
growing tendency toward immateriality. These philosophers 
furnished terms for the powers of \f/vxv proper on the side of 
knowledge and perception, but it is doubtful whether there is 
any trace in their writings of the term \f/vxv in a kinetic sense. 

Xenophanes was radical in his differences with the earlier 
philosophers. For him there was no change, and the unity was 
God. He was the first to philosophize on the Deity. Aristotle 
and Theophrastus have noted his method as unusual. Aristotle 
criticized Xenophanes for failing to make things clear. "Looking 
up into the broad heavens," Xenophanes asserted that unity is 
God. (Cf. Met. 986 b. 22.) Theophrastus admitted, according 
to Simplicius (Phys. Dox. 480), that the record of the opinion of 
Xenophanes came from some other source than laropia wept 

4>V(7e03S. 

The effort of Xenophanes was strongest toward ideas and terms 
that would take away false notions of the deity that was being. 
Since for him there was no motion, a second principle, even as an 
\ aspect of apxy, should have been out of place. In some of the 
fragments, however, we find a reversion to the Ionian attitude. 
The terms 7^717 and yevercop in Frag. 11 (Karsten) (Vor. p. 51) 
and the k yalrjs iravra statement of Frag. 8 indicate a physi- 
ologer's interest. Earth and water form the twofold source in 
Frags. 9-10. In Frag. 9 we are all sprung (eKyevo/jLeada) from earth 
and water. In Frag. 10 all things oaa yivovr rjde (f>vovrat are 
earth and water. In Frag. 12, offering forms for the limitation of 
one phase of the source, we find the terms -irelpas and aireipov. 

The doctrine peculiar to Xenophanes and his school is found in 
Frag. 4 where he said Being or God always abides in the same 
place, not at all moved. (KLvovfxevos ovhkv). A strong effort for 
a term for incorporeality is found in a fragment usually accredited 
to Xenophanes. (Frag. 2.) The climax of the theodicy of 
Xenophanes is reached in the magnificent hexameter of Frag. 3: 
"Without effort (God) swings all things by the power of thought." 
(voov <f>pevL) (Cf. Diog. L. IX, 19). 

29 



SO PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

The sole instance of the use of \f/vxv by Xenophanes occurs 
in Frag. 18 where he attested the acceptance of the doctrine of 
metempsychosis by Pythagoras. Diog. L. IX, 19 ascribed to 
Xenophanes the term irvevfxa for his \j/vxh- 

Parmenides, striving to distinguish things according to opinion 
from things according to truth, although affected by the ideas and 
terms of Xenophanes, still reverted to old notions and time-worn 
terms. In his "metaphysics' ' according to reason (/card rbv 
\byov), as a consistent Eleatic denying all movement, he would 
have been excluded from the ranks of thinkers whose terms offer 
evidence for \J/vxv as a principle of motion. Nevertheless, an 
examination of the terms in which he expressed his "cosmology 
of the apparent" discloses a tendency to give to his irvp-apxh an 
aspect of force. 

Aristotle, censuring Xenophanes and Melissus for crudeness, 
said (Met. 986 b. 27) that Parmenides seemed to speak in some 
places with more care. (fxaWov (Fkkircov) "But being compelled 
to account for phenomena," continued Aristotle, "he assumed that 
things are one from the standpoint of reason (/card rbv \byov) but 
plural from the standpoint of sense, (/card rrjv atcrdrjaiv) ." 

Parmenides (Verses 83-84, Vor. p. 120) said that true belief 
completely rejected generation (yeveats) and destruction (oXedpos). 
Again in v. 77 generation is extinguished (airkafiearai) and des- 
truction is incredible, (airvaros) Parmenides (v. 100) included 
generation (yiveadai) and destruction (oWvadai) among those 
things which mortals believed true but which he would himself 
consider but a name, (ovofia) . 

In the poem of Parmenides entitled rd irpbs aXTj&etav we find 
the privative terms ayevrjTos and av&Xedpos (v. 59), drpe/zifc (v. 
60), aidvr)Tos (v. 82), areXearos (v. 60), areXevT7]ros (v. 88), 
OLiravcros (v. 83), avapxos (v. 83) — all applied to to kbv. His 
other expressions describing Being are important as terms later 
to be adopted generally by philosophy. (Cf. Verses 60, 62, 78-80, 
and 89). 

The terms applied by Parmenides in his philosophy ra irpbs 
hb£av to a new force on the way to the clear expression of the 
idea of efficient cause may be regarded as the results of the efforts 
of Ionian thinkers for terms for their principle of motion. Aris- 
totle's assertion (Met. 984 b. I) that none of those who affirmed 
that all is one understood the nature of an dpxv rrjs Kivqvtus ex- 



ELEATlC TERMS 31 

cepted Parmenides in so far as this Eleatic in reality held two 
causes. Aristotle (Met. 986 b. 33) especially noted the terms irvp 
and 777 used by Parmenides for his two atrial. Parmenides 
himself (v. 113) said that there are two juop<£cu which men have 
determined to name. These he described (vv. 116-117) as ethereal 
flame of fire (fine, (vinos), rarefied (dpatos), and everywhere 
identified with itself) and (v. 119) nameless darkness, dense and 
heavy in character. (Cf. v. 122 for the terms <f>dos and vi)£). 
In v. 125 he gave to Saiyaiv the term nvfiepvav. 

In v. 120 Parmenides proposed to tell every seeming arrange- 
ment (diaKoafjLos) of his two principles. Aristotle (Met. 984 b. 
25) cited the verse of Parmenides (132) which names "Epcos as 
the first of all deoi. This "Desire" Aristotle called an atria 
the activity of which he expressed by the words taveXv and 
(Tvvayav. Parmenides (v. 127) mentioned a baijiccv fj iravra 
Kv(3epvq.. Simplicius (Phys. 39, 12) noted the toltjtlkov element 
of thought here. However correct may be the identification 
(Cf. Aet. Dox. 335) of AIktj (v. 69) and of 'Aeaytcn (v. 86) 
with this daifjLuv (v. 127), the doxographer saw in this dalfjLcov 
(which he called Kv(3epvrjris /cat kKtjpovxos) a source of motion 
and generation for all things. 

The tendency of the Doxographers (cf . tradition for Pythagoras 
and for Heraclitus) to give an efficient aspect to one phase of the 
apxv may be seen in a statement of Theophrastus (Dox. 482) for 
Parmenides where irvp is regarded as ttolovv. (Cf. also Hippolytus 
Dox. 564.) It is a question whether these statements are quite 
consistent with the concessions of Parmenides to popular opinion. 
He appears to have tended toward a second cause in his daiiiuv 
and at the same time to have emphasized the double aspect 
of apxh by the terms irvp and 777. 

The term Tvpoodrjs was attributed to Parmenides for \f/vxv- 
(Cf. Aet. Dox. 388). Elsewhere (Aet. Dox. 443 and Theophr. 
Dox. 500) there is some- evidence of the confusion of \J/vxy as a 
physical principle and \l/vxv perceptive and animate. 

As a pupil of Xenophanes and a contemporary of Heraclitus, 
Parmenides possibly fell heir to terms by which he expressed his 
vague idea of a second cause, but that later division of philosophy 
which treated of \pvxv proper is particularly indebted to him for 
the distinction of truth and opinion. 



32 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

Zeno, the double-tongued Eleatic dialectician (Cf. Simpl. 
Phys. 30 r 138, 30), confined himself to proofs of the unity of 
being by a method earning Aristotle's Trapa\oyL£e<rdai. (Cf. 
Physics 239 b. 5.) Zeno brought out nothing peculiar to himself, 
but he started further difficulties. (Cf. Plut. Dox. 581.) Diog. 
L. IX, 72 noted Zeno's Eleaticism in his superficial denial of motion. 
The earlier terms aidcos and aireipos are attributed (Aet. Dox. 
303) to Zeno and to Melissus. The doxographer there also as- 
signed to Zeno the term Beta for his \pvxh- In one of the apecricovTa 
of Zeno (Diog. L. IX. 29) we find ipvxn called Kpafia. 

Although consistent with true Eleaticism, Melissus offered 
interesting and significant terms. The fragments of the work 
wepl <t>v<re<jos rj irepi tov ovtos bring out his method and indicate 
his inheritance of terminology. The Eleatic denial of motion 
was expressed by him in Frag. 10 (Vor. p. 149) thus: (to kov) 
KivovpLevov 5e ovk av eirj. Discussing ko<tjjlos in Frag. 6, Melissus 
used the terms erepoioucrflcu and /iera/coo-^r/^^at. 

Simplicius, significantly prefacing Frag. 8 (Vor. 149), affirmed 
that Melissus meant Being to be aaccnarov. This fragment 
seems to indicate a very vague notion of incorporeality, and yet 
we cannot read the expression 8el awna pltj ex^iv as the contem- 
porary of Melissus read it. Olympiodorus (Vor. 142) represented 
Melissus employing as terms for his apxh the words pLa, aKlvrjTos, 
aireipos (Cf. Parmenides v. 104) and delos. (Cf. Aet. Dox. 303.) 

The Eleatic philosophers, not so far from the world of sense as 
their own apparent efforts and the traditional titles of their works 
would imply, nevertheless enriched philosophic terminology and 
laid up for later thinkers modes of expression which could fairly 
convey newly conceived ideas. The field of philosophy had already 
begun to widen and the growth of tendencies in speculation 
concerning nature, in minds not wholly unaccustomed to notions 
shading into the idea of the incorporeal, could not fail to be influ- 
enced by terms for the activity that was first expressed by kinetic 
yfrvxh. 



5. SUMMARY OF TERMS OF PRE-SOCRATIC DYNAMISM 

Allowing always for the fact that we are analyzing philosophy 
alive in men's minds when put out in certain terms, we find the 
dynamism of the predecessors of Anaxagoras expressed in three 
answers to the first question of philosophy. In one sense we may 
say that these early thinkers found three ways of avoiding the 
question of causality. The simplest course was the one taken 
by the early Ionians who, "not at all displeased with themselves," 
said Iv to vTroKeijjievov (Cf. Arist. Met. 984 a. 30), including an 
unexplained motion in the substratum of things. The Eleatics 
avoided the question for the time by altogether denying motion. 
Aristotle saw in this course the method of those who saw the 
difficulty and were conquered by it. (Cf. Met. 984.) Heraclitus 
took yet another course in his assertion that all is motion. 

The early Ionians reduced the many to a "one" in terms of 
physical matter and took for granted as their primitive substance 
a physical substratum which was eternally moved. Their genius 
for relations had, very probably, not so far exercised itself as to 
combine with their first principle physical things and the move- 
ment observed in qualitative change (not then so much as reduced 
to physical energy). This gap, if at all evident to them, they 
bridged by terms, old or new, for purely accidental change. A 
set of terms for the mode of action of their dynamic "one" is 
found along with the set of terms for the "one" itself, and the 
formula ypvxh-a-PXO covers mere hylokineticism. 

The phase of the notion of causality to which efficient action is 
in last analysis reduced was presented by the Pythagoreans, who 
left the sense-perceived world to answer the same question which 
had proposed itself to the early Ionians. The Pythagoreans 
raised the quantitative property of things into that other sphere 
where Plato was to find his "Idea" and Aristotle his "Form." 
We have no means of knowing from the words of the Pythagoreans 
the nature of the contents of the quantity expressed by the earlier 
of these philosophers in terms which hold them in regions of 
matter. As physical speculation widened, that mode of action 
expressed in the condition of proportion was accounted for by the 
Pythagoreans in terms for "harmony." The union of the opposites 
of which their first principle was composed called for expression 

33 



34 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

supplied here and there by \f/vxv and even by \J/vxr} Kal vovs 
denoting only a physical condition. 

Before the Eleatics began in any way to develop the notion of 
cause, they struck a note of criticism. Before they attempted 
to account for things they tried to reduce the object of their inquiry 
by excluding from philosophy what they called non-Being. 
Although they fixed no ground for the distinction of truth and 
opinion, yet their efforts in this direction served to raise and to 
leave open a future question for philosophy. If judged by their 
terms, the attempt of the philosophers of Elea to get away from 
sense in knowledge and from physical in object was far from 
successful. From the "all" of Thales to the "unity" and "Being" 
of Parmenides there was certainly an advance in terms, and yet 
notions transcendent at first sound were probably on the level 
with the Eleatic concept of Being akin to our idea of space. 
However certainly the ideas of being and of bodilessness are 
reduced, on evidence afforded by their own words, to physical 
counterparts, philosophy cannot but be grateful for the contribu- 
tion of such terms as those of Parmenides for his "Being." There 
should have been for the Eleatics no chasm from the many to the 
one, and yet in their inconsistency or in their concessions to popular 
thought they, too, accounted for plurality in terms of accidental 
change. Parmenides may have been merely describing physical 
conditions of union for the two phases of his primitive substance 
in words that now seem to carry the true note of efficiency. 

The time had not yet come for philosophy to see the final 
relation of things and their ultimate cause, but meanwhile thinkers 
here and there were defining a less inadequate notion of the Deity. 
The early Ionian (to adapt the words of Saint Augustine (De Civ. 
Dei VIII, 2) for Anaximenes) "nee . . . negavit aut tacuit, 
non tamen ab (Ipso) . . . factum . . . credidit." If, in 
the eyes of the old religion, to be a philosopher was to be adeos, 
Truth soon supplied itself as an object for the mind of the philos- 
opher without a God. A study of the growth of terms for the 
"Deity" and for "mind" shows the Pythagorean and the Eleatic 
philosophers at their best in these regions of thought. 

Heraclitus addressed himself to the genetic as opposed to the 
static phase of things. No longer primarily concerned with 
that from which things originated, philosophic speculation now 
began to ask how the world came to be what it is, the very question 



SUMMARY OF TERMS OF PRE-SOCRATIC DYNAMISM 35 

that would compel these thinkers to arrive at the true notion of 
efficiency and all that it implies. Heraclitus was critical in his 
acceptance of sense evidence, but, although he looked beneath 
for reality, from his terms we may conclude that he saw only 
physical reality. For him the mode of activity expressed in the 
order that remains was as real as the continual passing of the 
individual, the truth of which he arrived at by a Greek guess. 
Ultimately a dynamist, Heraclitus spoke for mechanism the 
strongest words thus far found in philosophical terminology. So 
long as the relation of the material cause and its activity was 
expressed as Heraclitus expressed the relation of "fire" and its 
motion, kinetic \f/vxv had still survived. Although he seemed to 
raise "fire" above the other elements which he postulated with it, 
his terms sometimes indicate that he conceived \pvxh in the 
sense of a more special energy. If there was a definite sense in 
his use of the term aeifaov for irvp — an actual introduction of 
the element of life in the motion of his apxv — and if he used 
\pvxo as another term for the activity of apxh, philosophy in the 
person of Heraclitus was on the point of seeing for the first time 
the immanent character of \pvxv as a physical activity. (Cf. 
Alcmaeon who, on secondary authority (Aet. Dox. 386), gave 
to <f)vaLs the term avroKivqros) . The element of immanency of 
the KLvrjais aidios of the first apxh was not immediately evident 
to the first philosophers. The force directly combined with 
matter, which they called through dearth of words Beds and xj/vxy, still 
continued as a \pvxi principle of motion. Dynamism or hylo- 
kineticism we may call a system inaccurately described as 
hylozoism. 

The notion of efficient cause may have entered with Heraclitus. 
He may have meant to convey by his epts a new idea of which 
he half saw the need, and yet this "Strife" might have been for 
him but a phase of Oeos (Frag. 36) in the sense of merely describing 
a physical condition. His conception of wvp as aeifaov is most 
noteworthy. If kinetic \f/vxv had up to this time for the early 
thinkers no immanency, we take it as an evidence of the sincerity 
of their quest that they henceforth strove to separate matter and 
its motion. 



6. TERMS OF EMPEDOCLES 

From a glimmer of the idea of efficiency in the figurative forces 
epis and apvovla existing for Heraclitus along with the dynamic 
aspect of his first principle irvp, we pass to Empedocles who, in 
his efforts to reconcile Heraclitus and the Eleatics, was the first 
(if we accept the word of Aristotle, Met. 985 a. 21) to express the 
notion of efficiency. 

In his endeavors to determine true knowledge, Empedocles 
aimed at accuracy of expression. He believed that it is hard to 
get at the mind of man (vv. 367-368 Stein) and he realized that 
custom often dictates forms of expression. (Cf. v. 44.) He 
bade his hearers look with the eye of the mind (voos) at the well 
pointed report (v. 363) which he assumed they demanded from him 
as from an oracle. His effort appears again in his desire to speak 
forcefully in case there had been in his former words anything 
defective, (v. 96.) 

Aristotle fixed the method of study of the philosophy of Empe- 
docles when he advised (Met. 985 b. 32) that we heed the Sidwia of 
the pre-Socratic rather than & ^eXXifercH Xcyco*'. Although his 
expression was characteristically poetical and mythological, 
Empedocles has been placed for us in Aristotle's Poetics (1447b. 17) 
as a <f>v(n6K6yos rather than a iroLrjTrjs. 

Trying to work out a system where things are one and many 
(ttoXXci re koX ev) (Cf. Plato Sophist. 242 D and Arist. Phys. 
187, a. 20), Empedocles, in a reaction against prevailing thought, 
said that "fools" and those to whom far-reaching thoughts (v. 45) 
are denied think that "mingling" is coming into being and that 
"separation" is destruction. (Cf. vv. 36-39.) 

Empedocles postulated the four elements as his material cause. 
The term irrjyr) occurs with him in v. 128 and the form apxr] in 
v. 130. The elements are named in mythological terms in vv. 
33-35. In vv. 104-107 Empedocles asserted that mortals and 
even deoi arise from these elements which appear to have been 
also the means of the power (f>povelv. (Cf. v. 336-337.) 

Aristotle's statement (Met. 985 a. 23) that Empedocles set irvp by 
itself (icad' avrb) is witness to the tendency of those who are still 
dynamists to limit the activity of the material cause of one element 
and to make the rest of the apxh passive. Although Empedocles 

36 



TERMS OF EMPEDOCLES 37 

seems to have made one of these elements predominant by setting 
"fire" over against the other three, still here and there he gave 
them all equal power. (Cf. vv. 87-89 and v. 112.) To "fire" in 
particular belong powers contained in the term Kparelv (Cf. v. 
112). In v. 263 "fire" separating (upLvofxevov) caused men and 
women to arise (avayetv). A doctrine peculiarly Empedoclean 
(vv. 265-267) maintains that irvp through its desire to reach its 
like, caused ovXocfrveis tvttol to spring up out of the earth. In a 
special application of the "elemental fire" (uyvy lov irvp) to the 
theory of vision he used the term ravacorepos (v. 325) to denote 
the refined character of his irvp. However, although "fire" is 
more important than the other elements, it, too, plays a sub- 
ordinate part. (Cf. vv. 215-216.) 

The mention of Kuxpts (v. 215) brings us to a consideration of 
the forces of Empedocles which Aristotle (Met. 985 a. 21) named 
as 3>tXt'a and Net/cos. Empedocles usually introduced these forces 
along with the elements and may even have used them as modes of 
expression for mere physical conditions of repulsion and attraction 
as Heraclitus used the terms "Strife" and "Harmony." (Cf. vv. 
102-103, 66-68, 248-251.) 

The activity of his own "Strife" and "Love" in the "process" 
was brought out by Empedocles in vv. 171-175. Terms for the 
motion of things coming into being are found in vv. 69-73 where he 
tried to reconcile continual change and immobility. The terms 
for the forces of Empedocles vary. He usually expressed them by 
the words Net/cos and $l\6tt)s (171-172). V. 250 has the term 
epts coupled with ^lXottjs of v. 248. Again, in vv. 190-195 he 
used 'A0po5tr?7 and NeZ/cos "which wrought the birth of things." 

"Love" under the names of Aphrodite and Kypris doubtless held 
the strongest note of efficiency for Empedocles. (Cf. v. 213, 215- 
216, 240-241.) Empedocles himself was probably one of those 
whom he mentioned (405-407) as having had no debs but Kvpins 
BacrtXeta. 

The element of chance enters in v. 196 and again in v. 174 and 
v. 255. The term rbxn occurs in v. 195 where by the Iottjs of 
tvxv a ll things ire<f>p6vr)Kev. (Cf. v. 231 where it is the property of 
all things to have cfrpovrjais and a share of vcbpa.) 

Plato (Leg. X 889 B) named Empedocles among those who relied 
on 0u(ris and rvxv rather than on rex^ or vovs or any deos. (We 
note in this passage the term Hxf/vxos which Plato applied to the 
elements of Empedocles.) 



38 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

Aristotle (De gen. et corr. 333 b. 20) said that for Empedocles 
"Love" separated the elements, which were before deos in origin. 
Empedocles himself identified these with deoi (Cf. vv. 104-107.) 
A noteworthy attempt on the part of Empedocles to fix the notion 
of a deity is found in vv. 137-138 where a sphere rejoicing in 
solitude is said to have been fixed in a vessel of harmony. Nearest 
to incorporeality of all his notions and recalling a like attempt on 
the part of Xenophanes are the ideas conveyed by the terms of 
vv. 344-351 where a divine being is defined as sacred and ineffable 
mind alone. {<t>pr)v lepri /cat a0ecr0aros.) 

The term \pvxQ is not found in the extant fragments of Empe- 
docles. His commentators used it when giving his doctrine of 
metempsychosis (Cf. Hipp. Ref. Dox. 558), but dvfios is his own 
word for the life of animals (v. 414) and of men (v. 435) who have 
changed their juop<M (v. 430). The word p,evos is found in v. 32 
for the spirit in Hades. 

The verses 333-335 of Empedocles were quoted by Aristotle 
{De An. 404 b. 11) as authority for the statement that for Emped- 
ocles the elements were dpxv and each element was \l/vxh- (Cf 
Theophr. Dox. 478 where six dpxai were credited to Empedocles.) 
The terms of Empedocles could not have been omitted in an 
examination of the growth of words expressing the earliest notion 
of a real moving cause. 



7. TERMS OF ANAXAGORAS. 

Aristotle's assertion (Met. 984 a. 11) that Anaxagoras preceded 
Empedocles in age but followed him in works places Anaxagoras 
for our purpose. Difficult as it is to fix the dates of the later 
Ionian philosophers, it is quite impossible exactly to determine the 
influence and the dependence of each on the ideas and terms of the 
other. The task of all who followed Heraclitus and the Eleatics 
was to synthesize the elements of truth in both systems. Anaxa- 
goras, a true successor of the early Ionians, inherited and developed 
the tendency of Heraclitus to advance toward ideas and terms 
which would destroy the identification of apxh an d its motion. 
Anaxagoras was for Aristotle (Met. 984 b. 15) the first "sober 
thinker," and yet by their "random talking" his predecessors had 
assisted him in the way of making the terms for his new ideas 
less inadequate than they would otherwise have been. 

His effort for precision of expression, even in a particular instance, 
shows that Anaxagoras realized the value of accurate terminology. 
(Cf. Frag. 17, Diels. Vor. 320.) His critical tendency of method 
may be seen in the apothegm ascribed to him by Aristotle (Met. 
1009 b. 25) : "Just such things as men assume will be real for them." 
Aristotle (Met. 989 b. 4) recognized the efforts of Anaxagoras for 
terms and noted that while Anaxagoras did not speak rightly or 
clearly, yet he meant almost the same thing as those who spoke 
later with greater clearness. 

In a study of the terms of Anaxagoras, we find safety only in 
his own words since the whole tendency of his commentators has 
been to identify his term vovs with vovs as it came into meaning 
after Socrates. We have seen a growing tendency on the part of 
philosophers to fix epistemological values, and yet we find nothing 
of this in the extant fragments of Anaxagoras. By raising the 
notion of vovs, semi-popular and particular, to the idea of a 
directive cause is one way by which Anaxagoras may have come 
to postulate an efficient force. However, this seems a big step 
for a thinker at this stage of the development of thought. He 
might have taken out the \pvxo which was the dynamic term for 
the motion of the apxv and have made it the separate cosmothetic 
force under a kindred term. By some such process as this, we 
think, Anaxagoras postulated vovs. He did not all at once arrive 

39 



40 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

at a full realization of the implication of his new idea, and so we 
find with him ypvxh remaining in things as a cause of motion (and 
possibly restricted to animate being) while at the same time its 
powers had already passed over into vovs. 

Before giving attention to the idea peculiar to Anaxagoras, we 
shall make the transition from the other Ionians to him through 
his terms for what would correspond to the former apxv and 
klvt](tls. Terms for the "surrounding mass" (to irzpikxov) of Anax- 
agoras are found in Frag. 2 (Vor. 314) and Frag. 14 (Vor. 320). 
"Air and aether" (aijp /cat aldrjp) occur in Frags. 1 (Vor. 313), 
2 (Vor. 314), 12 (Vor. 319). The terms KiveZv, aTOKplveadai, 
SLCLKpivecrdai, for "motion" occur in Frag. 13 (Vor. 319). Motion 
is frequently expressed in terms of "rotation" or "whirling" 
(7T€ptxcop?7(ns). (Cf. Frag. 12 Vor. 318). Force (Bfy) and swiftness 
(raxvrrjs) as sources of motion are found in Frag. 9 (Vor. 317). 
One phase of the process of how things came from air and aether 
is described in Frag. 15 (Vor. 320) as a avyxupeiv and an 
knxupdv. (Cf. also Frag. 16 Vor. 320 and Frag. 12 Vor. 319.) 

Anaxagoras appears sometimes to have overlooked vovs as a 
source of special activity and to have substituted for it physical 
conditions. However, vovs as an omnipresent ttjs KLvfoeais alriov 
was at all times very real for him. (Cf. Frag. 8 Vor. 317 and 
Frag. 14 Vor. 320.) In his analysis of things as they now are, 
Anaxagoras insisted that, excepting vovs, nothing is absolutely 
separate or capable of existing apart or of itself. Many of his 
negative statements served only to emphasize the attributes of 
vovs. He frequently reverted to ttclvto. iravrbs yolpav juerexei of 
Frag. 6 (Vor. 316). When things were all together, nothing was 
clear and distinct by reason of their smallness (viro o-puKpor-qTos), 
but finally of whatever "seeds" there were the most (otuv irXeio-Ta) 
each object became and remained distinctly (evbrfKbrara) qualified 
by their character. (Cf . Frag. 1 Vor. 313 and Frag. 12 Vor. 319.) 

In the answer to the question at once suggested by otcov ir\elaTa 
we come upon the notion of a "world of o-irkpnara" peculiar to 
Anaxagoras. (Girkpiiara became for Aristotle rd ojuoio/xepi?) . 
These are described in Frag. 4 (Vor. 315) where Anaxagoras said 
that in every compound there existed airep^ara iravruv xp^Marco^. 

Anaxagoras, explaining irepl rrjs airoKpiaios in Frag. 4, made 
certain mystifying references to another world or another order. 
iSimplicius (Phys. 157, 9) noted this erepa tls biaKoup.'ncns as 



TERMS OF ANAXAGORAS 41 

not aladrjTT] and considered that Anaxagoras spoke cos Tepl aXXco*' 
and that his bianpivis was voepa. (Cf. Anaxagoras on "other 
world swiftness" in Frag. 9 Vor. 317.) 

It is safe to say that the fragments of Anaxagoras containing 
references to vovs itself are the most important words spoken 
thus far in philosophy. The phraseology is still far from strict 
terms for the incorporeal, but we can almost see the efforts of 
Anaxagoras in his emphasis on the simplicity of vovs as he aims 
to confer upon it powers yet new. 

In Frag. 11 (Vor. 318) vovs is set apart from all other things. 
The end of Frag. 12 (Vor. 319) contains the same thought. 
There Anaxagoras maintained that vovs is mixed with no other 
thing but is yovos clvtos ew ecorou. The significant term avTOKparrjs 
occurs in Frag 12. (Cf. Plato, Cratyl. 413 C who gave to 
the vovs of Anaxagoras the terms auro/cpdrcop, ovdevl ne/jLeiy/xevos, 
Koo-fxelv.) Further terms for vovs are: aireipos and Kparelv and 
laxveiv fAeyicrTov (Frag. 12). The words Xcttotcltov tclvtcov XPV~ 
Hcltcov kcu KadapuTdTov of Frag. 12 indicate that the old striv- 
ing toward immateriality continued in Anaxagoras. 

At this point we may compare with vovs the Heraclitean 
\6yos and to <rocf)6v and yvdop,rj, which are not always clear. 
In Frag. 2 (Vor. 61) Heraclitus attested to the ignorance of men 
regarding Xoyos and further said that all things ylveoSai Kara rov 
\6yov. He complained (Frag. 18 Vor. 77) that no one had yet 
reached the conclusion that to o~o<t>6v is ttclvtcov Kexu>pio~iikvov. 
He mentioned yvkixr) m Frag. 19 (Vor. 68), which Diets renders: 
"In Einen besteht die Weisheit, die Vernunft zu erkennen, als 
welche alles und jedes zu lenken weiss." In Frag. 65 (Vor. 67) 
Heraclitus represented to vofybv as willing and yet unwilling to 
be called by the name of Zeus. 

If Anaxagoras took up for vovs the ideas of Heraclitus, it cannot 
but be seen that the yvkpq of Anaxagoras is something distinct 
from vovs itself. However much vovs, through the power by 
which it €7ko and dteKoa/jLTjcre, excelled an unthinking agency, 
it cannot be reduced to one of its own attributes, even to the 
highest power it possesses. 

The only instances of the use of \f/vxv by Anaxagoras lend them- 
selves to the interpretation of \pvxv as a term for the principle of 
motion. Frag. 4 (Vor. 315) gives a:dpooiroi /cat tol aXXa £*a>a 
ocra $vxfy &«. If ^XV was here actually used in a restricted 



42 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

sense as the principle of animation, we may conclude that it was 
at the point where vovs took its place in the terminology of 
cosmology that \pvxv became peculiar to animate being. The 
other instance of the Anaxagorean \pvxv (Frag. 12) repeats the 
expression 6a a i'vxfy €X«. $vxn may have been restricted in 
Frag. 4, but 6aa tpvxyv €X«t (Frag. 12) has an extension as wide 
as oarjv eidvrjaev 6 vovs of Frag. 13 (Vor. 319). 

We cannot say how definitely vovs superseded \pvxv in the 
mind of Anaxagoras. In particular applications of vovs to the 
cosmological process the old way of thinking may have led him 
to couple \J/vxv with vovs in portions of his work that have 
never reached us. Plato (Cratyl. 400 A) cited Anaxagoras as 
holding that the <t>v<ns of all things was vovs and that it was 
ipvxn which arranged {biaKoo-^elv) and controlled (exetv) all things. 
(Cf. Doxographic tradition for Ecphantus.) Aristotle's difficulty 
over the relation of faxy and vovs of Anaxagoras is well known. 
(Cf. De Anima 404 b 1, 405 a 13, 429 a 18). 

It was natural that Plato and Aristotle, whose minds were 
ruled by Socratic standards and fixed conditions of knowledge, 
should have been disappointed at the failure of Anaxagoras to 
apply his doctrine of vovs. The new agency, vovs, was not yet 
alight with finality for Anaxagoras. It remained for Socrates to 
quicken vovs into a final cause. In the act of abandoning \J/vxv as 
a kinetic principle philosophy began to speak in such terms as 
£wov, efxipvxos, aypvxos and xf/vxua is. The real substitute for kin- 
etic \pvxv would appear only when Greek philosophy had reached 
its height. 



8. TERMS OF THE SUCCESSORS OF ANAXAGORAS. 

It is a question whether Anaxagoras deserved the reproach of 
Aristotle (Met. 985 a. 18 ff .) to the effect that, when he had used 
vovs as a ix^xo-vi] irpbs rrjv Koo-fjLoirouav, he reverted to it only 
when at a loss for a cause, in other cases accounting for things by 
any other cause rather than vovs. Philosophy at this period 
found new life in the doctrine of the vovs of Anaxagoras. Greek 
thought had been advancing all the way from Thales to Anaxagoras, 
but the heirs to the terms and ideas of the great pre-Socratic 
were unable or unwilling to take advantage of their heritage. 

There are no extant fragments of the works of Archelaus. 
Diogenes Laertius (11, 16) has placed him for us as an Athenian 
or a Milesian, a pupil of Anaxagoras and a teacher of Socrates. 

Aetius, Dox. 331, attributed a doctrine to him in these terms: 
viro depfxov /cat kfxipvxLa-s crvaTrjvai rov Koafiov. For him arjp and 
vovs were 6 Btbs (Aet. Dox. 302), but the doxographer qualified 
Beds as not Koa/JLOiroios. 

The influence of Anaxagoras on Archelaus is apparent in the 
statement (Philop. de an. 71, 17 Hayd.) that Archelaus was among 
those who said that the all was moved vto tov vov. (We note in 
this passage rfi $vxv t° Kivelv.) A tendency to employ vovs in a 
particular sense appears in a statement attributed to Archelaus by 
Hippolytus wherein he granted vovs to all living things (Dox. 563). 

If the system of Anaxagoras were to be judged only by the 
representation it received at the hands of Diogenes of Apollonia, 
then Plato would have been justified in his assertion (Phaedo 98 B) 
that Anaxagoras made no use of vovs but treated "air" and 
"aether" as causes. (Cf. Plato's word aroira as descriptive of 
these causes.) 

Aristotle's statements regarding the aWi]p of Anaxagoras are in 
place in a consideration of the system of Diogenes. Aristotle 
(De Caelo 302 a. 31) noted that Anaxagoras used the words irvp 
and aldifp synonymously. 

In an effort to explain the phenomena of animate life, Diogenes 
limited to living things the vovs of Anaxagoras which Aristotle 
(De An. 405 a. 13) has called the Anaxagorean apxrj. The term 
used by Diogenes is vorjcns and vorjaus was for Aristotle himself 
(De An. 407 a. 20) vov Kivrjaus. 

43 



44 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

Simplicius (Vor. 335) ascribed to Diogenes (Frag. 4 (Diels) 
Vor. 335) an a-qp-apxh which was the source of life as well as 
of xj/vxr} Kai voyjgis. In the words of Diogenes (Frag. 4) \f/vxv> the 
same for all living things, was ai)p. (Cf. Frag. 5.) 

Frag. 5 (Vor. 335) contains as significant terms for ar)p-v6r)<ns 
Kvfiepvav, Kparely, Oeos. Frag. 7 (Vor. 339) describes the first 
principle as aibiov Kai aBdvarov crw/xa. (Cf. also Frag. 8 Vor. 339.) 
Theophrastus (Dox. 477) gave to the drjp of Diogenes the terms 
eforeipos and aidios. 

Aristotle's statement (De An. 405 a. 21) has been given for 
Anaximenes as one of those included under "certain others," but 
Diogenes is deservedly the only one there named as identifying 
ypvxn and a7jp. a-qp is there described as ttclvtcov XewTonepkaTaTos. 
Aetius (Dox. 392) said that for Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Arche- 
laus, and Diogenes ovala faxys was aepwdrjs. However, Diogenes 
is the only one whose words convict him of that charge. Of 
Diogenes it can be said as of no other philosopher before him that 
to have \l/vxv was to be e/x^uxos. In Diogenes we find true 
hylozoism. Whereas Anaxagoras caught his vovs from above 
by a brilliant stroke that did not fully succeed in bringing it 
down to things, Diogenes postulated vorjcns inhering in drjp. 
He outlined his monistic system with open eyes in contrast to 
Xenophanes whose pantheism probably never presented itself 
to his own mind. 

While on the one hand the strivings of Anaxagoras were wasted 
on Diogenes and their results appropriated by conscious dynamism, 
vovs failed equally of development with the Atomists. Leucippus 
is credited (Aet. Dox. 321) with a work irepl vov of which we 
have no fragments. In the fragments of the works of Democritus 
we find terms new and significant, faxy as a term for "our soul" 
was frequently used by Democritus (Cf. Frags. 171, 159, 187 
Diels). Frag. 1 (Vor. 385) contains the term xf/vxuais. 

Frag. 11 (Vor. 389), describing the two kinds of yvdcp.7] as 
yvrjair} and o-kotlt), indicates a critical attitude and recalls 
aKOToevaa S6£a of Empedocles (v. 343). The term a\J/vxos 
(Frag. 164 Vor. 414-415) occurred for the first time with Demo- 
critus. (Cf. also the term aXoyos of this fragment (164) and the 
terms eppvxos and axpvxos of the introduction to the fragment 
by Sextus Empiricus.) 



TERMS OF THE SUCCESSORS OF ANAXAGORAS 45 

The phrase oaaa \l/vxhv exet (Cf. Anaxagoras) recurs in Frag. 
278 (Vor. 435). Here \pvxv is confined to mortals and other fed. 

We are indebted for the most part to Aristotle for the physical 
doctrines of the Atomists. He gave as their oToixeta the terms 
to ir\fipes kclI to Kevov. Simplicius (Phys. 36, 1) (Vor. 346) used 
the term clto/jlcl in describing the doctrine peculiar to cosmological 
atomism. Aristotle contributed the account regarding the 
"natural necessity" according to which the atoms came together. 
<j>vaLs was given as the principle of motion. (Cf. Phys. 265 b. 24.) 
Simplicius (Phys. 327, 14 Vor. 364) criticized the Atomists for 
giving no ahia but airb TavTOfxaTOv kclI tvxvs (Cf. Aristotle, Phys. 
196 a. 24.) Cicero (De Deor. Nat. 1, 24, 66) in the words "sed 
concursu quodam fortuito" may have drawn on the apparent 
identification of avTOfxaTov and tvxv (Cf. Arist. Met. 984 b. 8). 

The latent materialism of Democritus was brought out by 
Aristotle (De Resp. 471 b. 30) where rj xf/vxv was to Bepixbv and 
certain axw ara m the air were called vovs /cat xj/uxv- As a 
statement of Democritus we have (Plac. Dox. 390) the assertion 
that all things /xerexet ^vxys 7rotds. The "incorporeality" of the 
iriip of the Atomists was described by Philoponus (Vor. 369) as 
kv aoofiacFLV aaoofjiaTOi' ota XeirTOnepeiav. 

Democritus received much attention from Aristotle in the 
De Anima. Although Aristotle admitted (405 a. 13) that Anax- 
agoras meant by vovs something different from \pvxn, he seemed 
certain that Democritus used vovs and xf/vxy as interchangeable 
terms (Cf. 404 a. 28). ^vxi proper is for Democritus 
irvp tl /ecu depfjidv (404 a. 1). "The spherical atoms," continued 
Aristotle, "Democritus called wvp kclI xpvx'n- These spherical soul- 
atoms most easily find their way through things and, being 
themselves in motion, they set other things in motion, for the 
Atomists assumed rj ypvxh as that which furnished motion to 
living things." No such sharp lines as Aristotle drew around vovs 
existed for the Atomists whose use of the term was probably akin 
to its force in the phrase U -kclvtos voov of Herodotus (8, 97). 

Aristotle (De An. 405 a. 8) commended Democritus for neatness 
of expression. Perhaps the greatest contribution of systems 
that failed to develop the idea of vovs was the contribution of 
more precise and accurate terminology for ideas already in the 
mind of philosophy. 



9. SUMMARY. 

It remains to review in these systems, all of which were incom- 
plete, the instances of the use of \pvxh as a term for motion. The 
early Ionians, for the most part oblivious of the real problem, 
included motion in the generic notion of cause. In particular 
instances they used the expression \f/vxv v *X*w as merely equiv- 
alent to klvtjtikov elvai. Again, when speaking of beings of a 
limited sphere, they expressed the property of life by the same 
phrase — ypvxv v hc*w- ^xh possibly came to stand with some 
for the general principle of k'lv^uis which, while it had not yet 
worked itself out into a separate force, was nevertheless on the 
way to becoming a specific cause. 

In the period of transition, when \pvxh as a dynamic force was 
passing into \f/vxv kclI vovs and into vovs as a term by itself for a 
mechanical and a final cause, whether through an over hasty 
advance or through a reaction, thinkers in all good faith gave the 
power of thought even to all things, xf/vxv in their minds had not 
yet fully separated from things when, with Heraclitus, a material 
principle that was aeifaov replaced the apxr} which had before 
been aeiKlvr\rov . \f/vxy had not so much narrowed as it had con- 
tinued, almost in a faded sense, as the principle of motion for 
all things to which the term $wov had been extended. Thus 
"whatever has \pvxy" stood now for all things whatsoever and 
again for all things with life. Moreover, from philosophers yet 
lacking sharp distinctions of the power of life and the power of 
thought we may expect such statements as those of Epicharmus 
to the effect that all living being is endowed with thought and 
attempts such as those of Philolaus to distinguish the power of 
thought in man and in nature. Heraclitus and Empedocles were 
marked by this tendency to grant <j>pbvqo-is to all things. 

The pivotal idea of all philosophy before Socrates is the vovs of 
Anaxagoras. This cosmothetic force, vovs, was for him the only 
thing absolutely separate and unmixed, but his language at 
that time offered no better terms for it than XeirToraros and 
KadapooTCLTos. The idea of an efficient force was for Anaxagoras 
paralleled by the notion of true immateriality. Empedocles had 
veiled the aspects of the separate moving power under poetical 
and figurative terms. The genius of Diogenes of Apollonia was 

46 



SUMMARY 47 

not great enough for his inheritance and so, in the answer 
vorja-Ls-arjp he returned to a position which philosophy had 
outgrown and in his self-satisfied cosmological monism he can be 
rated only below the early Ionians. The philosophers before 
Anaxagoras had all tended towards a separation of force from 
matter and in their hylokineticism may be regarded as the fore- 
runners of dualism in a sense in which the acknowledged hylozoist 
can never be so considered. At this point it took genius to see 
that the problem was not solved by the mere naming of yvco/ir] or 
vovs as a separate force. 

While philosophy, rising to the distinction of the element 
of thought and the element of life, was separating a rational force 
from "first substance," it did not all at once desert its old position, 
but left the element of life inhering in all matter. At this time 
terms for life and terms for distinctions of powers came to be used 
in a more conscious sense. 

In Diogenes of Apollonia we find frequent use of the terms for 
life and a distinction of \pvxy and vorjais. exeii> vorjcnv took on 
with him definite meaning, while there seems to have been in his 
mind a complete identification of the ideas connoted by the phrases 
e/jLif/vxov elvcu and \pvxyv exei*'. 

The inestimable value of the Anaxagorean vovs was ceded away 
and its true development was again thwarted when philosophy, in 
the system of the Atomists, turned into the lane that must lead 
to a dead wall. However, the appearance, at this point, of the 
first systems of latent panpsychism on the one hand and of latent 
materialism on the other can be regarded as part of the growth of 
philosophy in the sense that, while the natural tendency of the 
sincerely philosophizing mind is in neither direction, these systems, 
evolved before adequate notions or terms for the immaterial order 
had been advanced, in the light of the system of Aristotle would 
serve as instances of cast-off hypotheses. 

Among the words of Democrituswe find the terms far], ypvxuaLs 
and the noteworthy use of a\oyos and of a\f/vxos. The oaaa 
ypvxyv exet phrase recurring in Democritus is equivalent to 
€/x^i»xa without the uncertainty attending its use by Anaxagoras. 

As the extension of the term \pvxv became more restricted by 
lines of demarcation separating the regions of speculation, active 
specialization in one sphere attached more definite sense to terms 
hitherto used with a vague meaning. No clear notions of imma- 



48 PRE-SOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF MOTION 

nent and of transient motion had yet been conceived, (frvcns and 
ecraa had appeared as terms of Philolaus, and Plato tells us, in a 
characteristic speculation on the derivation of the term \l/vxh, that 
it was a refinement of the expression 17 <j>b(jiv oxei kcll ex«- The 
Atomists, less inexcusably than the philosopher of today, thought 
to solve the problem of motion by the doctrine of "natural neces- 
sity" or self -movement. We have noted the terms <}>v<ris and 
to clvtohcltov ascribed to them by Aristotle. On secondary 
authority Alcmaeon has been credited with 4>v(tls avTOKivrjTos 
/car' aibiov Kivrjatv. The term adfaov for the apxv of Heraclitus, 
who attributed natural energy to his irvp-apxh, appeared simul- 
taneously with an incipient effort to separate original motion from 
original matter. A fragment occurring in Stobaeus (Flor. 1, 
180 a.) and credited to Heraclitus by Diels (Vor. 78) reads: yj/vxys 
€(ttl X670S eavrov av&v. Anaxagoras, refusing to other things 
existence k<i> eavTcp, demanded an unmixed and separate char- 
acter for a vovs which was avroKparris. Aristotle {De. An. 404 
a. 8) credited the Atomists with KLVovfxeva Kai aura as a term for 
their first principles. The language of all these attempts fore- 
shadows Plato's terms for the definition of yf/vxv proper (Cf. 
Phaedrus 245 C) — to avTd eavTo klvovv. 

The "natural necessity" explanation, complete only when sup- 
plemented by the theory of matter and form, did not satisfy the 
Greek physicist whose science must be crowned by his cosmology. 
The first Greek thinkers set the problem in a question which for 
us would read: To what shall we refer the activity of transient 
material energy and the immanent principle of animation? This 
question later widened to include: To what shall we refer the 
spiritual activity within us which is but extrinsically dependent on 
its organism? \pvxv activity had from the first demanded Aris- 
totle's fjLopcf)7]. The connotation of kinetic \f/vxv in objective sys- 
tems which held no adequate notion of immateriality determines, 
from a certain standpoint, the position of each pre-Socratic phil- 
osopher. 

The charge that the earliest of these thinkers endowed aTpvxa 
with \pvxv (Diog. L. I, 24) is unfair in the sense in which 
it is made. Out of his wealth of thought and term Aristotle 
(De. gen. an. 762 a. 18) could guardedly say: iravTa ^ux^s eZi>cu 
ifK-qpri. 



SUMMARY 49 

The subsequent history of Greek philosophy may be written 
in outline in the words of three men. The true development of 
the vovs of Anaxagoras came only in the doctrine, advanced on 
empirical principles by Socrates, that whatever exists for a useful 
purpose must be the work of an Intelligence. (Cf. Xen. Mem. 1, 
4,4.) 

Plato (Timaeus-29 D) on the way to truth said that 6 Koafios 
was foos efx^vxos evvovs through the irpbvoia. rov Seov. 

Philosophy made a transition in the words of Aristotle (De Caelo 
271 a. 33) : 6 81 Beds /ecu 17 <f>vais ovdev h&ttjv ttoioxxtlv. There ever 
remains the d^oflaujuaffrorepos of Socrates (Mem. 1, 4) regarding 
the Creator of ££ a fy<t>pova /cat evepya. Nature must seek the 
source of its laws in God. When the genius of Aristotle, never 
deserting his position in passing from kingdom to kingdom in 
philosophy, had contributed a ttp&tov klvovv aKivqrov (Phys. 256 a.) 
and a votjctls vorjaecos (Met. 1071 b. 20), it remained for Christian 
philosophy to complete this last word of pagan thought with the 
necessary ideas of the providence and the personality of God. 
Christian philosophy in turn is complete only when religion binds 
the world of the physicist and the psychologist back to God, Who 
has endowed His creature man with a mind having as its object 
Truth, the First and the Last. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Texts of Sources and Commentaries. 

Aristotle, Works. Bekker. (Berlin, 1831-1870). 

Editions of separate treatises: 

Metaphysica, Christ. (Leipsig, 1895). 

De Caelo, De Generatione et Corruptione. Prantl. (Leipsig, 
1881). 

Physica. Prantl. (Leipsig, 1879). 

De Anima, Hicks. (Cambridge, 1907). 

Aristotle's Psychology. Wallace. (Cambridge, 1882). 
Plato, Works. Bekker. (Berlin, 1816-1823). 

Mullach, Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum. (Paris, 1883-1888). 
Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. (Berlin, 1906). 

Doxographi Graeci. (Berlin, 1879). 
Hitter et Preller, Historia Philosophiae Graecae. (Gotha, 1913). 
Wimmer, Theophrasti Opera. (Leipsig, 1862). 
Jackson, Texts for the History of Greek Philosophy. (London, 1901). 

II. Secondary Authorities. 

Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen. (Leipsig, 1892). 

Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy. (London and Edinburgh, 1892). 

Tannery, Pour l'histoire de la science hellene. (Paris, 1887). 

Gomperz, Griechische Denker. (Leipsiz, 1896). (Trans, by Magnus, 

London, 1901). 
Adamson, The Development of Greek Philosophy. (Edinburgh and London, 

1908). 
Benn, Greek Philosophers, Vol. I. (London, 1883) . 
Baeumker, Das Problem der Materie in der Griechische Philosophic 

(Miinster, 1890). 
Beare, Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition. (Oxford, 1906). 
Millerd, On the Interpretation of Empedocles. (Chicago, 1908). 
Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece. (London, 1898). 
Bake well, Source-book in Ancient Philosophy. (New York, 1907). 
Rohde, Psyche. (Leipsig, 1898). 

Muller, Lectures on the Origin of Religion. (London, 1878). 
Turner, History of Philosophy. (Boston and London, 1903). 
Stockl, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophic (Ed. Ill, Mainz, 1888). 

(Trans, by Finlay, Dublin, 1887). 
Weber, History of Philosophy trans, by Thilly. (New York, 1896). 
Windelband, History of Philosophy trans, by Tufts. (New York, 1901). 
Uebebweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic (Berlin, 1894). 
GonzAlez, Historia de la Filosofia. (Madrid, 1886). (French trans. 

Paris, 1890-91). 
Teichmuller, Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe. (Berlin, 1874). 
50 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 51 

Eisler, Wdrterbuch der Philosophischen Begriffe. (Berlin, 1910). 

Arleth, in Archiv f. d. Geschichte d. Phil., VIII, 1, pp. 59-85, VIII, 2, pp. 

190-205. 
Zeller, in Archiv. f. d. Geschichte d. Phil., VIII, 2, pp. 151-152. 
Hammond, in Philosophical Review, Vol. IV. (July, 1895). 
Avelixg, in Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III. (Cause.) 
Driscoll, in Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I. (Animism,) 



VITA 

The author of this dissertation, Sister Mary Thomas Aquinas 
O'Neill, O. S. D., was born March 7, 1884, in Madison, Wisconsin. 
She pursued her elementary studies in Saint Raphael's parochial 
school of her native city under the direction of the Sisters of 
Saint Dominic of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. She was graduated from 
the Madison High School in 1902. In 1904 she entered the 
novitiate of the Sisters of Saint Dominic, at Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. 
From 1906 to 1911 she taught in Saint Clara Academy, Sinsinawa, 
and worked at intervals in the University of Chicago and in 
Saint Clara College. In 1911 she began work at the Catholic 
University of America, receiving the A. B. degree in 1912 and the 
M. A. degree in 1913. 



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